Borderline Madness
by Brawl499
Summary: A change around of Borderlands 1 in which the cast of the first and second games are working together. The Bl2 group will be going through the various dlc's for Borderlands 1 and eventually lead into Borderlands 2. Starts off right before Sledge's death in the main game. Also please review!
1. Chapter 1: Meeting Up

T-Bone Junction, regardless of being infested with Crimson Lance it was still the main meeting point for the vault hunters, who were about to double in number according to Axton.

"So you said these guys are vault hunters?" Maya asked Axton, who were both in the back of the Mock-Bandit Technical the four hunters were riding in on their way to T-Bone.

"Yeah, friend of mine, ex Crimson Lance. Said he and a couple others are also looking for the vault, suggested we all group up and make things easier." Axton said back, raising his voice a bit so Maya could hear him over the combined sound of the wind and the car's engine. After about 10 more minutes of driving along the wrecked Pandoran highway they made it to T-Bone Junction. Once everyone was out of the Technical, they all walked over to a small bar nearby, which, according to Axton, was where the other vault hunters would be waiting. Four people were sitting there, including a man who looked like he lived off of nothing but ground beef and steroids his whole life*.

"Hey, are you guys the other vault hunters we were supposed to meet he-ah!" Maya attempted to say, being abruptly cut off as the behemoth of a man quickly sprang up, spun around, and lifted Maya off the ground in a death-grip of a hug while yelling what sounded like the name Mandy.

"Brick, that's not your sister, hell if you had waited a couple of seconds you would've seen the two look nothing alike. Now drop her before her face starts to match her hair or something." Another man stated in an accent, quickly standing up to try and get Brick to not kill Maya by mistake not even thirty seconds after meeting her.

"Oh, woops. Sorry, you sounded a lot like her." Brick stated, ungracefully letting Maya drop to the floor while she tried to get her breath back.

"Ok, now that that disaster is averted, name's Mordecai, you four the vault hunters Roland told us about?" Mordecai asked, helping Maya back on her feet afterwards.

"Yeah, good to meet you, name's Axton, that's Maya, the tall mysterious guy is Zero and the midget is Salvador." Axton said, introducing his three partners.

"Hey, up yours!" Salvador called out, seemingly insulted by his short stature.

"Wait a minute, you're a siren?" Mordecai asked, looking at Maya's uncovered arm.

"Yeah, how do you know? Almost everyone else I've met just thinks it's regular tattoos." Maya stated, wondering where Mordecai learned about sirens.

"My friend Lilith over here's got the same markings. You two know each other by any chance?" Mordecai said, gesturing to the redheaded woman next to him.

"No, we don't. Glad to meet another siren though." Maya stated, looking at Lilith's markings, she was definitely another siren.

"Ok, now that you're all here we can discuss the deal me and Axton made, we're all after the same thing, so with that said we're going to be working together. At this moment we're busy trying to track down the remaining fragments of the vault key. 8 people is a bit overkill for a scavenge hunt, so Axton suggested a while back that you four deal with some other jobs we've been asked to do, and in return we all go for the vault when we have more info to go on." Roland stated, gaining everyone's attention. "The Jakobs corporation said they have an issue out at Jakobs cove that needs dealing with, they didn't say what but offered us too good of a reward to justify ignoring it. You four head out there and see what the issue is, might want to rest first though, those Bandit technicals are not the most relaxing thing to ride in."

"Hey do me a favor, you find a Jakobs warehouse anywhere out there, loot it for me, I wouldn't mind a new revolver." Mordecai asked jokingly, half expecting them to not take him seriously.

"Alright well if that's that we'll let you know when we have anything, Jakobs sounded kind of worried we wouldn't accept their contract though, so be careful." Lilith stated, sounding vaguely worried.

"What's the worst it could be? It's not like they're dealing with a zombie infestation or something." Salvador said, making fun of the improbability of a zombie invasion.

"Good point, but still." Lilith responded.

And with that the two groups went their separate ways, each heading off to rest before attempting any more missions.

"Hey Maya, you said you have an apartment around here?" Axton said, mentally praying they wouldn't have to spend the night on the sidewalk.

"Yeah, bought it not too long after I got to Pandora, it's just up the road." Maya responded, gesturing to the second floor of a building directly ahead

Once they reached the apartment door, they entered to the sight of a small, messy apartment with one open door leading to a bedroom on the other side of the room, a couch on the right, a one person chair in the back left corner, and a table covered in news reports and articles detailing sirens. There was also a metal slat window parallel to the couch, covering everything in a dim blue light. The silence was interrupted however, when Salvador barreled past the others, sped for the bedroom, closed the door, and locked it with a very audible click.

"Did I just lose my bed to a midget? Really?" Maya stated in disbelief at the sight of Salvador forcibly claiming rights over the one actual bed in the apartment. "Well could be worse, at least there's still the couch." Almost right on cue, Maya turned to the couch to witness Axton drop onto the couch and relax, claiming that as his final resting place for the night. "Grrrgh, well I guess I'll sleep in the cha-really?" Maya cut herself off in disbelief as she witnessed Zero sit in the last piece of furniture in her apartment, and she certainly wasn't about to try sharing a bed with Salvador. Zero's only reaction was to calmly pat his lap and display the text symbol for a heart from his faceplate as a joke. Realizing it was that or the floor, she very hesitantly accepted. "Look, I don't know if you're enjoying this, but I swear if you haunt me about this, I will rip that helmet of yours off, you understand?" Maya threatened, not sure if Zero was enjoying being Maya's temporary seat or not.

"I will never tell, an embarrassing secret, you do not want shared." Zero responded in that weird Haiku format he always spoke in. And with that everyone gradually drifted off into unconsciousness… with the exception of Axton, who, enjoying the prospect of being a dick, waited until Maya and Zero were asleep, then took photos of the two of them.

Author's note

So that's the first chapter, my plan is to have this and the other two I'm doing running together in parallel, I'll update any of the three whenever possible, I WILL NOT abandon this story or my others randomly, no matter how long it takes for you to hear from me again. Also the little * symbols are meant to represent points explained after the chapter, like references or things I think I need to explain. So in this chapter the whole "ground beef and 'roids" thing was a reference to Handsome Jack's description of Brick in Borderlands 2, you can hear it randomly on that radio in sanctuary just outside the fast travel building. Also please review! Both of my other two fics have one review each, one fic the statement was a bit too vague, and on the other I didn't even quite get what the guy was asking, so please, review your heart out! If I'm doing something grammatically wrong or anything like that, or if I messed up Zero's haiku dialogue please say something, I won't snap at people just because they say I did something wrong.


	2. Chapter 2: Zombies? Really?

It wasn't long, getting ready never was for them. Aside from Zero and Salvador having to talk Maya out of breaking every bone in Axton's body for his little photo stunt everything was about average, of course Axton being Axton even that was becoming pretty normal.

"So, Jakobs said absolutely _nothing_ about what they need us for?" Salvador asked, wondering what was with the secrecy, it's not like the four hunters posed any threat to Jakobs as a whole after all.

"They just said look for some Dr. Ned guy, he'll probably know more about what's going on." Axton responded.

"Heh, what's the worst it could be, we killed Skagzilla no problem. Worst case scenario it's either zombies or a claptrap insurrection." Salvador said, mildly laughing at how non-threatening a claptrap with a gun would probably be.

"Yeah, well on the bright side you and Maya would probably have a good time with zombies, what with those ECHO-sims you two play whenever we're in the technical." Axton joked, figuring that it probably actually taught them a thing or two about zombie survival. By that point they reached the fast travel station, selecting Jakobs cove, it wasn't long before they had arrived.

"Hello Jakobs co-woah crap!" Axton stated, realizing midway through his sentence how dark, unappealing, and just a general mess Jakobs cove was.

"Jakobs actually values this place?" Maya asked, finding it hard to believe a place like this was actually valuable.

"Greetings, misinformed zombie fodder!" A white and red claptrap unit rolled up, greeting the four vault hunters.

"Wait, did he just say zombie? Sólo mi maldita suerte*, me and my big mouth." Salvador stated, regretting his earlier zombie jokes. The claptrap continued to talk.

"I am not affiliated with the Jakobs corporation, but they've hacked me to tell people like you that they would appreciate some assistance with the overwhelming situation with the living impaired." The claptrap stated, probably not containing enough free mind power to notice the vault hunter's reactions.

"Really? Zombies? Of all the things it could be it's frikin' zombies? I mean hell, at that rate he's going to say claptraps are taking over the world or something! Let me guess, you're going to say something about skags becoming sentient?" Maya angrily ranted, almost not believing what she was hearing.

"Well look on the bright side, at least we won't get shot at for once." Axton stated, trying to be at least a tiny bit optimistic, regardless of how much he wanted to tell Brick Jakobs had his sister as payback against the company for sending them here.

"I should warn you though, that they'll suck your brain out of your cranial cavity like a crappuccino if you get too close." Claptrap warned, not realizing that was probably one of the worst things he probably could have said.

"You're not helping!" Axton yelled, annoyed at the claptrap's inability to realize that warning wasn't improving the group's morale at all.

"If you would still like to help, I'd suggest you turn on the town's defenses, otherwise, crappuccino…" Claptrap stated, finally ending his warning. The unit then proceeded to roll away and disappear into a small claptrap sized hole in a rock nearby.

"Ok then, so is anybody still in this?" Axton asked, hoping he wouldn't have to fight the undead on his own.

"Hell yeah! Bring it on!" Salvador cheered, pulling out two Vladof rifles* and bending his arms at the elbows so the barrels were pointing up.

"Eh whatever, I wanted excitement so I guess I'm getting it, but if we find some fat guy with chainsaws for hands I'm out*." Maya stated, trying to be a bit positive.

"A unique challenge, an army dead but not dead, challenge accepted." Zero said, indirectly stating his interest to keep going.

"Well there's one good thing, if any of us get maimed we still have the New-U stations!" Axton stated, hitting the antenna of a nearby New-U station, which then proceeded to spark and explode in a miniature sparks show. "Crap…"

"Ok thanks to sir ungraceful here we'll have to try and make it to another New-U station without getting killed." Maya said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice after witnessing Axton's little fireworks display. And with that they set out along the trail to the town of Jakobs cove.

After a small walk they reached their first group of infected.

"Hey, this is actually pretty easy." Salvador stated, almost effortlessly mowing down infected while Maya picked off any lucky enough to avoid Salvador's bullets with an smg. Zero sat up on the ridge and did what he did best: Sniping. Headshots were a bit more difficult considering the infected liked to run with their heads bent inhumanly far back, but his rifle's raw stopping power was enough to drop the unlucky one or two he was able to catch. Axton simply kept an eye out for any that tried to come up behind Maya and Salvador. That's when _it_ showed up.

"Uh, Maya! Behind-oh boy." Axton tried to call out, realizing what was about to happen when a tall, thin zombie with a slightly bloated stomach* emerged from the ground behind Maya… and proceeded to puke some sort of green bile on her.

"Ah, what the crap!" Maya yelled, spinning around and opening fire on the zombie, which was shredded easily.

"Sheez, what happened to you?" Salvador stated, looking over at Maya after killing the last zombie.

"That fucker puked some bile crap on me." Maya stated, bile covering part of her head and chest.

"Maybe Jakobs cove has a shower or two. Either way we should keep moving." Axton said, jumping down off the rock ledge he and Zero were on and leading the way. After another run in with some more infected they finally reached Jakobs cove.

"So this is the town of Jakobs cove? Ok, Zero, you activate the turrets, the rest of us will get the zombie's attention." Axton ordered. And with that they all set off into the town. Zero deployed his decoy and nimbly leapt through the outskirts of the town, hitting the switch on each auto turret. Once all turrets were on, it was only a matter of seconds before the infected were just red mist and mulch on the floor.

"That went well, now where's that claptrap at?" Maya asked looking around for the claptrap they met earlier. And right on cue, said claptrap arrived and sped over to the town bounty board.

"The town should be safe for now, but if you're really going to solve this zombie infestation, you're going to need to talk to Dr. Ned. He's been trying to fix the problem, and I'm sure he could use a hand. You'll find him at his office down on the docks. I'll open the waterfront gate for you." Claptrap stated, moving to go open the waterfront gate.

"Ok, now that the town is secure, let's stock up before we head out again. And Maya, I would suggest finding a shower or something, that bile's starting to smell."

"Yeah, good idea. Just do me a favor and _don't_ try to take pictures this time." Maya responded, remembering the last time Axton pulled that stunt.

Author's note

So there's chapter 2, I'm trying to get into a better habit of writing more often, so that I don't leave people hanging for too long. I also made sure to do a bit better with Zero's haiku dialogue, don't know for sure how long it will last because it makes actual conversations more difficult, but if I do cut it it'll be instigated through an event in a future chapter, not just an instant "Hey he suddenly doesn't speak in Haiku for no reason at all." kind of thing. Also thank you to everybody who reviewed, these are the first actually sensible reviews I've ever gotten since I joined this site, so I'm glad to hear the feedback. And also to Stazlerous, I specifically made sure to do better with the Haiku thing because of what you said, so thanks for pointing out my error. And also to MElee smasher, I don't think you'll be disappointed…

* Notes

*1: Salvador does occasionally say things in Spanish in Borderlands 2, so I figured keep that going a little bit, it translates to "just my damn luck" in English.

*2: The weapons in this are going to be mostly Bl2 weapons, but I might throw in a Bl1 weapon or two in there like the Hellfire smg.

*3 Reference to Biggy Man from Splatterhouse 2010 remake

*4 I hope I didn't really mess up the description on the Defiler, from here on out they'll just be called Defilers in the story text, but I was just trying to make it sound like I wasn't porting in a Boomer from Left 4 Dead.


	3. Chapter 3: Blood and Nuts (Pun Intended)

Once everyone was restocked on ammo and Defiler-gunk free, the group left the town and set out after Dr. Ned. It was only a mere few seconds after leaving that they found what they were looking for.

"Dr. Ned's _Bleeding Heart Infirmary_? Fun…" Maya stated sarcastically, offset by the very unsettling clinic name.

"Oh come on Maya, you've got a big history with bleeding, so I don't see what the issue is!" Salvador stated, almost expecting to dodge an elementally charged fist any second now.

"Can I feed him to the zombies already?" Maya asked Axton, hoping his answer would be yes.

"As much as I want to say yes sometimes, no. He may be short and annoying sometimes but he's still useful."

"You two _do_ know I can still hear you, right?" Salvador asked, wondering if his teammates thought he suddenly went deaf. Before he could get an answer they made it to the door of the clinic. On the door was a message that read "Back in Never! minutes". alongside that was a small message that Axton proceeded to read.

"Screw this. I'm not hanging around here to get killed. I can protect myself better at home. If any fool finds this I'm at my place in the bayou. Good luck reaching me though. Just stay away. It's safer if you don't try to get to me." Axton read aloud from the note. He then proceeded to crumple up the note, toss it over to his shoulder, and turn to face the rest of his team.

"So we're going to a bayou then?" Maya asked.

"Looks like it, hopefully he'll actually be there, if this turns into a goose chase we're probably done for." Axton stated, marking Ned's house on his map.

"Or we'll go to like, five different locations just to find him dead at the sixth one or something, cause that would be our luck." Maya stated back sarcastically.

"Yeah wouldn't doubt it." Axton responded, figuring the chances of that were sadly fairly high knowing them.

And with that they proceed to stop by the bounty board to see if they could accept any extra missions while they were out, then set out to Hallow's End to try and get to Dr. Ned. After a small walk and a minor incursion with Axton thinking it would be funny to attempt to scare Salvador, then finding out soon after that Salvador's instinct to being scared is to scream like a little girl and punch whoever is attempting to scare him in the crotch as hard as he can, they finally made it. Shortly after entering Hallow's End they were greeted to the sight of a massive open swamp area. After killing a few zombies that decided to get too close, they decided to try and organize some sort of a plan.

"Ok, we've got two things we can do here, we have to go after Ned, and there's also this request from the bounty board, evidently someone wants this PumpkinHead guy dead, any suggestions?" Axton stated, trying to get a group vote on what they should go after first.

"Maybe we should split up two and two? You and me go after Ned, Zero and Maya go get PumpkinHead. Anybody agree?" Salvador stated to Axton, trying to come up with a plan.

"Works for me, you two ok with it?" Axton asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine with it, hopefully Zero won't be _too_ quiet though." Maya stated, elbowing Zero lightly.

"Ok then, if it's all settled then let's get moving. If anybody gets into a rough spot just ECHO for help, with any luck we won't die a corny horror film death for splitting up." Axton stated, remembering how it seemed like in every horror film out there people died as soon as they split up. The two groups then proceeded to head off to their objectives. It seemed to be fairly easy, not much resistance on either team's part.

"So, Zero. Any particular reason you speak the way you do?" Maya asked, trying to generate some sort of a conversation.

"Restate your question, I don't see what's wrong with it, is it strange to you?" Zero asked, not breaking from his Haiku speech pattern. Zero then proceeded to match speed with Maya as they walked on towards PumpkinHead, relaxing a bit as no zombie was within sight or earshot.

"It's just that your the only person I've met that talks like that. Is there any particular reason you do that? Is it preference? Is it you only way of speaking? I just want some answers dammit." Maya stated, hoping to break Zero out of his unusual speech form.

"It is just preference, does it bother you?" Zero said, oddly cutting out the seven syllable middle section he usually implements, maybe she was getting somewhere after all.

"No, I just want to get to know you a bit, I mean we work together so much, you've probably got a full profile's worth of information about me but I don't anything about you besides the fact that you never take off that helmet of yours." Maya stated, hoping for some honest answers. She then stepped out in front of Zero and turned to face him, hoping it would make him consider giving her an answer.

"Behind you." Zero stated, reaching for the hilt of his sword.

"Wait, did you just speak normally? Holy crap Zero, I can't believe it! You actually spoke like a normal person! I don't know what made you decide to do that all of a sudden but I'm just glad it happened!" Maya cheered, moving forward to hug Zero, which lasted about four seconds before Zero abruptly shoved her to the ground and activated his sword. Maya started to think Zero snapped before she felt drops of blood land on her face. She proceeded to look up to see Zero had shoved the blade of his sword straight through the head of a zombie that resembled a bruiser. After deactivating his sword, Zero then proceeded to help Maya back on her feet.

"Like I said, behind you." Zero stated, a small bit of personality coming through in his statement.

"Huh, thanks. I guess I was just too focused on trying to get some sort of a new response out of you that I didn't hear him coming. So are you going to keep up with this or are you going to go back to your old ways?" Maya asked, hoping this short outburst of Zero's would last at least a bit longer.

"That depends…" Zero stated, deciding to see Maya's reaction before making a decision.

"Would you do it for me?" Maya responded, attempting to persuade Zero.

"Fine. But only because it's you. Don't expect me to do something like this for Salvador." Zero responded, wrapping his arm around her shoulder as they kept walking.

"I will admit you two would be a pretty funny pair." Maya joked, happy that she's starting to crack Zero's shell.

"Don't push it." Zero stated just as they entered a clearing with a couple large jack o' lanterns outside a large cave on the other side.

Meanwhile with Salvador and Axton.

"Dammit Ned, can you turn that crank any faster!" Axton yelled, trying to pick off any rushing zombies with his assault rifle while Salvador and Axton's turret mowed down the general mass of undead charging at them.

"Oh come on, don't act like you've never had to wait on a hand cranked elevator during a zombie outbreak before. Sheesh." Ned said calmly, acting like a horde of undead at his doorstep was nothing to worry about.

"What?! On second thought I don't want to know, just hurry the hell up before we get swarmed." Axton replied, standing up from his crouched position to bury his hatchet in a charging psycho zombie's skull.

"Uh, Axton, am I the only one seeing that?" Salvador asked, seeming a bit on edge at the sight of a new zombie emerging from the ground.

"The fu-are those large screws sticking out of his neck?" Axton asked, wondering if he was suddenly in an old horror book. The Tankenstein charged, missed Salvador, and slammed face first into the gating in front of the elevator to Ned's house, dazing it for a few seconds. This would have been mildly amusing if it hadn't backed up, then tripped over and landed on Axton's turret. Seeing his opportunity, Axton reached for a grenade and rushed the down Tankenstein, then forced the grenade into its mouth. "Yeah! How's that shock grenade taste bitch! Oh dammit." Axton stated as he realized that the electricity was actually healing the Tankenstein instead of hurting it.

"Great, now we just pissed him off, any ideas?" Salvador asked, firing an assault rifle with his right hand at the Tankenstein and a shotgun with his left hand at the other zombies.

"Uh, run like hell back to Zero and Maya and pray they can help us?" Axton asked, seeing that as the best option at the moment.

"Sounds like that's our only option, so who's going first? Maybe you should throw down your turret and it can cover our escape. Axton?" Salvador asked, not noticing at first that Axton took off full sprint back to Maya and Zero the moment Salvador agreed to their plan. "Hey! Wait up pendejo!" And with that Salvador ran too, trying to sprint as fast as his short legs could carry him. This wouldn't have been that bad if the zombies didn't find a buff midget to be so appetizing, and Axton forgot to throw his turret, so every zombie in the area gave chase.

Back with Zero and Maya

"Well, that was fun." Maya stated, sitting on a rock while trying to clean the pumpkin guts from PumpkinHead's bombs off her arm.

"Very, not the most basic fight I've ever had. I would've appreciated you not phaselocking me though." Zero stated, sitting on PumpkinHead's face down corpse, his sword sticking out of the back of PumpkinHead's, well, head.

"I told you it was an accident! You got in front of me." Maya responded in her defense, standing up and walking over to Zero.

"I would imagine I'm not the easiest target to hit while moving. Besides, your lack of an effort to free me sooner made it seem like you enjoyed it." Zero stated, trying to evoke some sort of annoyance from Maya.

"Height can be deceiving. You _are_ the tallest one after all." Maya stated, stopping in the middle of the clearing. "Wait, do you hear screaming, like "Dear god help me" screaming?" Almost right on cue both hunters turned to see Axton sprinting into the clearing full speed, muttering something while sounding out of breath. "The hell happened to you?"

"Tons of zombies, big fucker, bolts in his neck, smack, boom, zap, crazy bright, healed, fucking ran, lost Salvador." Axton spat out while trying to regain his breath, starting to sound like he was going crazy when he said it. Maya was about to say something regarding Axton having lost Salvador before they heard even more screaming mixed in with a combination of English and Spanish swearing. Looking back out at the entrance to the clearing they spotted Salvador running for dear life with an estimated 50-60 zombies behind him*, all of which were being led by the Tankenstein from earlier.

"Uh, any ideas?" Maya asked, trying to think how they were going to take out that many zombies that fast.

"You've been messing with your powers lately, right?" Axton asked, starting to get an idea.

"Yeah, why?" Maya asked, starting to wonder where this was going.

"Think you could lift up big, dumb and ugly over there and make him explode from the inside out?" Axton asked, figuring maybe the Tankenstein blew up like a suicide zombie, it did have the same barrel on its back after all.

"It's worth a try" Maya stated, raising her left hand. In an instant the Tankenstein was suspended. Maya then proceeded to clench her left hand, causing an increase in pressure around the Tankenstein until it exploded in a massive show of blood and gore. But upon literally blowing up, the phaselock bubble released a shockwave that splattered the regular zombies in every direction, turning the general area where the undead swarm was a blood red color with the occasional limb here or there. All three hunters sat there dumbstruck until Salvador made it over.

"What? Never seen a midget run before? Hello?" Salvador asked, trying to get his teammate's attention. Deciding to see what they were staring at he turned around to the sight of the now blood painted clearing entrance. "Uh, what happened to them?"

"I just, obliterated them. Just like that, gone, done, annihilated." Maya said, hardly believing her eyes. "It was awesome! I mean did you see that!? I just splattered them all over the damn walls!" Maya cheered, going from calm and sounding slightly horrified to sounding like the happiest person in the world.

"Ok yes yes ridiculous blood and gore, all we need is a bit of nudity and it'll be a freaking grindhouse film. Now, let's go back to Ned's and maybe the old bastard will have finished bringing that elevator down." Axton stated, trying to get everyone back on track.

"Ok, jeez, let a girl have a little fun." Maya responded, after which they set out back to Ned's house. Everybody was relatively quiet up until about two thirds of the way there. "So, what was that you were saying before Axton? Some crap about zaps and healing or something?"

"Long story." Axton replied, not wanting to go into very great detail about the mishap.

"I still hate you for leaving me." Salvador stated, not forgetting how quick Axton was to run.

"I thought we were running right then and there. Besides, runnings good for you, I heard being chased by zombies helps growth." Axton stated sarcastically, right before receiving a very well deserved punch in the nuts for the second time that day from Salvador. "Damn midgets…" Axton wheezed out as he fell over in pain. From there Zero and Maya had to carry Axton the rest of the way.

"Don't act all fancy and waste my time, get on the damn thing!" Dr. Ned yelled upon seeing the four hunters return.

"Asshole." Maya muttered as they stepped onto the lift. Once they were at the top they entered, intending to find out exactly what was going on.

Small author's note: The whole Salvador being chased by a horde of zombies was heavily influenced by the scene in pirates of the caribbean 2 where Jack was running from the horde of natives, basically just picture that scene with zombies instead of cannibals and Salvador instead of Jack and you basically have how it played out in my head. Also to make up for the slight cliffhanger I'm going to start writing the next chapter sometime tomorrow. Hopefully I'll also have it up tomorrow, although then again at the time I'm posting this it would technically be today. You get the point.


	4. Chapter 4: Second Time Charm?

Once inside, the four vault hunters turned the corner to witness what was probably the last thing they expected to see.

"I probably went about this all the wrong way. I'm a doctor, I make people better. I just wanted everyone to be okay." Ned stated, sounding almost like he was confessing about something, until the vault hunter's interrupted him.

"Zed? The hell are you doing out here? Where's that Ned guy we're looking for?" Axton asked, seeming slightly confused.

"And why do you have a mustache attached to your surgeon mask?" Maya asked, sounding equally confused.

"What? No you idiots, I'm Ned! Right here!" Ned pointed to himself, attempting to convince the hunters that he is in fact a different person.

"Alright joke's over Zed, I guess you're going through some sort of identity crisis but seriously, where's Ned?" Axton asked, still not believing Ned.

"Fine, you don't want to believe me, here's all the damn proof you need." Ned stated, handing Axton a photo.

"Oh, well shit I guess you are Ned." Axton stated, trying to understand exactly how this made sense.

"Anyway, I made the zombies. I was never as good as my totally not made up brother Zed, and we're totally different people." Ned stated, finishing his abruptly interrupted explanation.

"Ok, we already understood because of that photo that you're not Zed, so why explain it again?" Maya asked, trying to understand Ned's seeming lack of logic.

"I dunno, emphasis maybe?" Ned asked, not quite understanding why himself. "I need a drink" as Ned raised a large bottle up to his surgeon mask.

"Wait, how the hell do you drink with that surgeon mask on?" Axton asked, adding to the list of questions that had been thrown around since they arrived.

"You know, I never really thought about that. Whatever, I need you to head down to the local hospital and retrieve an antidote I was working on." Ned stated, hoping to put an end to all the questions the hunters were asking him.

"Simple enough, let me guess, there's a catch to it?" Maya asked, almost knowing exactly where this was going.

"I lost the key to the gate, there is a small side entrance behind a tombstone, you might get mauled by an undead torso or two but nothing bad." Ned stated calmly, almost like zombie apocalypses were his form of a monday.

"Right… I'll remember that." Maya responded, shifting uncomfortably. After which the four hunters left the room and grouped up outside to decide on a plan.

"So, just got yet another assignment from the bounty board. Jakobs wants us to find out what happened to some Jackie O' Callahan guy. Want to give this splitting up thing a try again?" Axton asked, figuring maybe the second attempt would go better than the first.

"Fine, but I am not going with you again. Come on Zero, let's go find Callahan." Salvador stated in a surprisingly feminine fashion before grabbing Zero by the wrist and pulling him towards the elevator. Under normal circumstances Zero could probably break free in the blink of an eye, but he was just too surprised by Salvador's sudden outburst to do anything but walk to prevent himself from falling over while looking back at Axton and Maya. The two stepped into the elevator and soon were out of sight, leaving just Axton and Maya on the ledge.

"Um, what the hell was that?" Maya asked in disbelief.

"Salvador's bossy, hell-bitch wife side maybe?" Axton asked, also wondering what he had just witnessed. "Well then I guess we should head out to the hospital. Wait, while we're here." Axton took a few steps forward so that he was standing on the edge of the platform overlooking the area. "I'm king of the wor-." Axton attempted to yell out as a joke about their high up position before a nearby corpse eater flew in and made a dive-bombing head-butt straight for Axton's crotch. "Fuck…me." Axton wheezed out before tipping over the edge.

"Say goodbye to kids." Maya quietly said to herself, laughing about Axton's evident turn of bad luck before calling the elevator back up. After a few minutes Axton was back up and the two left for the side entrance to the Hospital.

"So he said it would be hidden behind a tombstone?" Maya asked, spotting a tombstone up ahead.

"Yeah, I think that's it right there." Axton said, sprinting up towards the tombstone. "Here lies Bill, that's dull." Axton reached over and touched the tombstone, which very abruptly and quickly fell backwards. "Well shit, that was easy."

"I take it you're not very good with delicate things?" Maya asked, making a joking verbal stab at Axton.

"I guess, want to see if I have any better luck with you?" Axton asked with very obvious implications.

"Not on your life." Maya stated, walking through the now open side entrance. Once on the other side they were greeted by a very unpleasant sight. "Ah crap, I know where this is going."

"Great, a freaking graveyard. Well lets just take it slow and don't split up, maybe things'll go alright." And with that they advanced up the hill, undead erupting from the tombstones the whole way up. Both hunters advanced side by side, opening fire on any who got too close. Aside from the occasional psycho zombie that got too close their advance was relatively easy. Once they were at the top Salvador ECHO-ed in.

"Uh guys, bad news." Salvador said, sounding slightly worried.

"What happened? Are both of you alright?" Axton asked, wondering if splitting up really was as bad of an idea as he thought.

"We're both alright, we didn't find Callahan, but we found an ECHO recorder. He was saying something about some monster up on the hill by the hospital, you're probably about to find it." Salvador stated before closing down the link. Almost right on cue they heard the sound of a skag roaring. Looking up at the roof of the hospital, they saw what looked like a large half human-half skag creature with a large yellow hat on.

"Is that thing wearing a hat?" Maya asked, thinking either this place was getting weirder by the minute, or she was going insane. Axton was about to respond before the creature jumped down from its perch, slid off the roof and landed directly in front of the hospital. It stayed like that for a few seconds before charging forward. It made a B-line dash straight for Axton, mauling a zombie that was behind Axton by accident. While the wereskag was busy mutilating the zombie, Maya moved in with a Jakobs double barrel that was laying on the floor and fired, ripping a large hole in the creature's back.

"Huh, that was easy. Wait, what the?" Maya asked, watching as the wereskag started growling, stood back up and turned to face her as long claws started to grow out of its fingers. The wereskag slowly started advancing, then lunged forward as Maya attempted to load another two shells in, impaling her on its hand in one quick movement. The wereskag lifted her up to face level before tossing her off its claw in one quick swing. It then turned to the sight of a very pissed off Axton aiming the Jakobs double barrel Maya was holding right at its head. Unfazed by the sight, the wereskag opened its mouth to roar, which was abruptly cut off by Axton firing both barrels directly into its mouth, splattering blood and brain matter across the yard. As soon as the skag dropped to the floor for good, Axton dropped the shotgun and rushed over to Maya. As it turns out the wounds were worse than he expected, she was already gone.

"Dammit, why. Why the hell does this have to happen." Axton yelled, sitting next to Maya's corpse. He continued yelling, unaware of the footsteps growing louder behind him.

"Uh, Axton, what are you doing?" Maya asked, wondering what was going on.

"Maya? But how? I saw you get impaled! How the hell are you back?" Axton asked, standing up and sounding extremely confused.

"I respawned at the New-U station just down the hill, did you forget we have those or something?" Maya asked, wondering if Axton had truly lost it.

"Oh, right. Forgot about those." Axton stated, figuring this whole zombie fiasco was probably starting to mess with his memory.

"By the way, was that you screaming "Why god why" the whole time I was walking back up the hill?" Maya asked as she walked over and grabbed the antidote they were looking for out of a nearby dumpster.

"Uh, no. Must've been some poor sap getting mauled." Axton stated quickly, trying to hide his embarrassment.

"Whatever, let's get back to Jakobs Cove, Salvador and Zero are probably waiting for us." Maya stated, grabbing the Jakobs double barrel and starting to walk back to Jakobs Cove with Axton not far behind. Once they were back at Jakobs Cove they saw Salvador and Zero by the bounty board alongside Ned's claptrap, which was tied up.

"The hell happened to him?" Axton asked, wondering who the claptrap's big mouth had angered just a little bit too much.

"No idea, he was like this when we got here." Zero stated, turning in the Callahan job to the bounty board.

"Oh thank goodness. Get me the hell out of here! We have precious little time." The claptrap said as soon as Axton walked up to it. The claptrap then jerked slightly and started talking in an accent that made him sound incredibly similar to Marcus. "Before you go off and help that lying mobile toaster, you'll want to hear this. Dr. Ned is not who you think he is, and he's about as trustworthy as my dog who I put down for being untrustworthy." The claptrap then switched back to his regular voice. "Woah, hey where'd that come from? Ok, just kidding around here, just kidding around, feel free to forget everything I just-." The claptrap stopped with another jerk and started speaking in the accent again. "This is all true, but don't take my word for it, look for yourself. Take the boat tied to the pier to the lab on the other side. You'll find a door in the town that will require a special knock." The claptrap switched to its regular personality for a second. "Woah, I'm possessed!" the claptrap yelled out before the accented voice took over again. "The knock sounds like this." the claptrap stated before knocking on its hull in a rhythmic pattern. "Now go, and leave this robot for the skags."

"Marcus, is that you controlling this claptrap?" Maya asked, figuring that was probably where the accent was coming from.

"Why yes, I wasn't about to let some of my best paying customers get killed, bad for business." The claptrap responded, gesturing to the four hunters.

"Where the hell did you learn to hack a claptrap long distance anyway?" Maya asked, wondering if anything made sense on this island.

"Actually, I don't know, it just kind of came to me all of a sudden." Marcus answered, sounding deep in thought. "Whatever, you going to take the boat or not?"

"Right, forgot. Ok, see you later." Maya responded, right before the four hunters turned around and left for the nearby pier.

Author's note

Sorry that it took me longer than expected to get this out. I had a pretty busy weekend and things like that, but it's here now so that's better than nothing. Some things I would like to point out that might have been misinterpreted.

To Eckskalibur : This was actually not intended to be a romance fic or anything like that in the first place, Zero talking normally was just supposed to be that he's doing that to humor Maya, he's not suddenly going to be some touchy feely flowers and unicorns kind of person or anything like that. He's still going to be a cold assassin, he just talks like a normal person so that I can give him more than one line every chapter. And also, the main reason why there are a lot of transitions is because there's not really much I can do with zombies as enemies for exciting fights. I'm trying to make it more dynamic so that it's not just a boring read until Secret Armory, but it's still a bit difficult. Regardless, thanks for your feedback because otherwise I wouldn't have thought that I would need to clarify for anybody, so I'm glad you said what you did.

Anyway, some other things I thought I would mention is this isn't going to be an outright crack fic, Salvador's not suddenly going to be acting like a bossy woman, I just had to put that scene in because I was laughing too much after initially thinking of it. And Axton is not going to get progressively dumber, this was just an off day for him. Also please directly point out any mistakes I make, Chapter 1 has been through three revisions now, so I am more than willing to go back and fix my mistakes or answer questions in an author's note. And one final thing, to all you people asking for Bloodwing and Roland to not die, if that's your standing on things you're going to love the person coming in once Zombie Island is finished…


	5. Chapter 5: Popcorn Anybody?

"Ok, we're here." Maya stated, standing up as the boat came to a stop next to one of the docks. Once everyone was out they all grouped up to formulate a plan.

"Alright, so lets find out what the hell Marcus was talking about, we go in, find this lab, and get some answers. Oh and also I got a message about some Frank Igorski guy Hyperion wants us to find here, so do we want to split up again or-" Axton attempted to ask before being cut off.

"NO!" The other three hunters yelled in unison, not wanting to risk splitting up again given their recent mishaps with that tactic.

"Alright, jeez. Tough crowd. So I guess we're all sticking together for this one. Also, I don't think there's any fast travel stations around here so lets make sure to remember about this boat, otherwise we're probably swimming back." Axton warned, pointing at the boat. Almost right on cue, and also probably because Axton's a karma magnet, the eerie quietness that had been setting in since they arrived was broken by the sound of a zombie screaming. It was getting progressively louder until a Suicide Zombie fell and landed in the boat. The following explosion sent wood chunks in every direction and sunk whatever was left.

"Axton, no offense, but your luck just sucks right now." Maya stated bluntly, watching the small chunk of the boat that remained intact slowly sink.

"I think I know something else that could probably suck." Axton retorted sarcastically, smiling slightly at Maya. This moment of glory lasted a few seconds before he found himself shoved off the edge of the dock with Maya walking away. "I really need to work on the timing with those jokes." Once Axton managed to climb back onto the dock, he ran to catch up with the others, who had been standing in an elevator, presumably waiting for him. Once everyone was inside they rode the elevator up, exiting to find everything was unsettlingly quiet again, only now there was also a strange, slightly orange tinted fog in the air. The four hunters advanced up an adjacent staircase in a single file line, still finding the whole area to be zombie free.

"Ugh, god, anybody else smell that?" Maya asked, trying to hold back from covering her nose.

"Yeah, smells like burning bodies, overreactive survivors maybe?" Axton wondered, trying to think of why someone would be torching corpses, it wasn't like you could be infected just by standing near one after all.

"Anybody else hungry?*" Salvador questioned, looking around. The other hunters just stared at him in disbelief. "What? It's not _that_ bad is it?"

"Just for that, you're going in front." Maya semi-joked, kneeing Salvador lightly in the back to get him to move. After pulling out a Jakobs shotgun, Salvador moved in. Everything was still quiet, with the exception of what looked to be an injured Crimson Lance trooper with a shotgun.

"Hey! You!" Salvador yelled, attempting to get the Lance Trooper's attention. "Hey cabron, you deaf or something?" Salvador moved in closer and grabbed the trooper, then spun him around to find the trooper's stomach slashed open. The trooper then growled and raised its shotgun. It was able to fire off a shot at Salvador, whos shields absorbed the damage, albeit knocking him over in the process. The Zombie probably would have been able to fire again if the recoil didn't cause its decaying forearm to literally rip off and go flying with the gun. A few seconds later a loud bang rang out and the zombie dropped dead. Turning to the direction the shot came from Salvador saw Maya walking over, assault rifle in hand.

"I said go in first, not prove you can survive a shotgun shell at point blank." Maya poked sarcastically, helping Salvador back on his feet.

"Funny, question is were you aiming for him or me? Because I never know with you sometimes." Salvador responded, picking up his shotgun again.

"Found the lab." Zero spoke up.

"Really? It's supposed to be hard to get into, surely it's hard to spot as well, right?" Maya asked, wondering how Zero could be so positive that he had found it.

"Look directly ahead of you, it's the metal door that has a poster on the front that reads _Totally not a shady medical lab where the rules of life and death are defied or anything like that_ with a picture of Ned's face next to it." Zero rang out, dropping down from his perch on top of a nearby roof.

"Oh wow, Ned really sucks at subtlety doesn't he?" Maya asked, walking up to the door and knocking on it. Once the door slid open the four hunters proceeded down the stairs into what seemed to be a very bloody, very messy med clinic. Once inside they split up, searching various corners of the room for anything they could find.

"Found something." Axton called out, lifting up a book.

"What is it? An ECHO recorder? Laid out plans? Ned undeniably admitting something stupid that would totally put his ass in the fire with Jakobs?" Maya asked, curious as to what Axton found.

"No, it's a book called _How To Rule Your Own Zombie Army : For Dummies_, and there's this other one here called _How To Be a Total Badass Villain : For Dummies_." Axton responded, holding up two black and yellow books, each with a picture of a bandit on them. "Oh and there's also this ECHO recorder over here labelled _My Evil Plan_, might as well play it." And with that Axton hit the play button on the recorder.

"Ok, this is going to be hard to say." It was Ned's voice playing over the recorder. "So, one of my reanimated corpses sorta, ate Bill today. And by sorta, i mean is now crapping his bones in the yard. The good news is he's already payed me rent. And I don't have to listen to him bitch about toenail clippings that totally weren't even mine. Not to mention the popcorn shenanigans! Consider this my solemn promise to begin attempting evil for the sake of profit from this point on. My brother, who isn't even the same as me in disguise, would _never_ support me in this. I hope no one ever finds these logs and incriminates me to my employer Jakobs. Because that would probably set off a whole chain of events where I have to try and kill them with my horrific creations. Oh well."

"Well that was convenient, looks like we just need to find some way to get this to Jakobs and we can probably get the hell out of Jakobs cove." Axton stated, storing the ECHO recorder.

"Wait, just found one over here." Maya said, playing the recorder, it was another one from Ned.

"Test, testing. This is the first official entry of my, Dr Neds, scientific discovery journal in my ongoing mission to extend the lives of those who have already passed. We must remain vigilant in our-_Bill? Bill! Are you making popcorn? What did we talk about? Dude, we just talked about this!_ Where was I? Uhm, saving the human race from the stale clenches of death. That sounds like a kickin' party. Is that how the kids are saying it, kickin'?" Maya facepalmed upon hearing that statement. " Anyway, here ends my first official journal entry."

"Found another recorder." Salvador called out before hitting the play button. This entry, just like the last two, was in Ned's voice.

"Greetings loyal Nedcast viewership. Now in the third week of my clinical trials with corpse reanimation. The skin cells have reacted well to the treatment, but the bodies themselves seem to have uncontrollable hunger. Right now all they crave is raisins and bran muffins, but I fear with strength applied to the cell reanimation, their hunger will grow much stronger, and possibly dangerous. Fear not, I will trudge forward unhindered by the possible destruction of mankind. Am I mad? Probably, but at least I _don't make popcorn when people are trying to work!_" Strangely enough, right on cue the hunters heard what sounded like someone eating popcorn. Zero, Maya and Salvador all turned to the source of the sound to see Axton standing there with a bag of popcorn in one hand, and a handful of popcorn in the other.

"What?" Axton asked, trying to look as innocent as possible. After that the four hunters left the building. With ECHO recorders and popcorn bag in hand, they looked around for a way to send the data to Jakobs.

"Hey, there's a comm. building over there. Think that would be a good place to send it?" Maya wondered, pointing at the comm. dish sticking up over the other buildings in the area.

"Yeah, pretty sure the way there is right over here. For some reason there's no zombies around for once." Axton stated, wondering where they all went, surely it wasn't _just_ that one crimson lance zombie. After a small period of time and several failed attempts to simply boost one another onto the rooftop the comm. array was on, they finally made it. "Alright, lets hope this works." Axton placed the ECHO devices in a pop out tray, which then slid back in and closed.

"Reorienting satellite dish, please commence cowering in terror from zombie presence." An automated voice coming from the console announced, regardless of not a single zombie in sight. "Dish positioned. Transmission commencing on 56k connection. Please wait." Everything was quiet for a few seconds before a voice started playing over their ECHO devices.

"The Jakobs corporation would like to extend a warm and friendly thank you for informing us of Dr. Neds malfeasance. Money has been wired to your account as a show of gratification. Your non verbal acceptance of this tender enters you into contractual obligation as an employee of the Jakobs corporation and you now need to return to Jakobs Cove and await further instructions under duress of termination. Like, we'll kill you. We've sent a contact to meet you there. Get moving." It was the voice of a Jakobs phone receptionist. The voice was definitely a real human, yet still eerily happy considering the nature of the matter at hand. After listening to the message, the four hunters stepped out of the comm. room and walked down the stairs to the sight of a horde of zombies flooding the streets.

"Really? Now you guys show up?" Axton asked, wondering where all the zombies had suddenly come from.

"Make a run for it?" Maya quickly asked, looking over at the others.

"You do know that probably wouldn't end well, right?" Zero asked, bluntly stating facts.

"Yeah, doesn't really sound any different from what we usually do, want to try it? Actually, I have an idea." Maya stated, walking over to Axton. "Hey Axton, think you could head over to the other side of this roof and jump down, then distract the zombies for a bit while we get to the beacon location?"

"No way. Not no but hell no. Nu-uh, nope, not happening." Axton spat out quickly, fearing where this was going.

"Do it for me and I'll be all yours for a night if we make it out of this." Maya proposed, hoping that would work.

"Which edge of the roof did you want me to head to again?" Axton asked quickly, eyes wide open.

"Just head to the opposite side of this roof and try to lure as many of these zombies away as possible, maybe with a bit of luck they're like that Bill guy and love popcorn. Axton?" Maya asked, not even noticing that Axton took off full speed for the other end of the roof, jumping down in front of a massive crowd of zombies.

"Hey! Rot for brains! Look at me!" Axton yelled, pulling out the bag of popcorn* from earlier. Upon doing that all the zombies in the crowd turned to look at him.

"Oh boy, maybe this wasn't as good of an idea as I thought." And with that Axton took off running, popcorn bag in hand, and every zombie in the immediate area following him.

"So are you seriously going to follow up on what you just said?" Salvador asked, curious if Maya meant what she said.

"You kidding me? Unless he keeps my pay from me that was just a lie to get him to start running without a second thought." Maya answered, mentally praying that she didn't just have an Axton moment. Remembering that Axton was down there running for his life, the three hunters jumped down and ran for the signal tower. Thanks to Axton playing decoy, it was relatively easy to get to the base of the signal tower.

"So what, we just push the button and wait?" Salvador wondered, pushing the button. Immediately afterwards the signal tower activated, slowly extending higher and higher into the air until it eventually projected a light that could probably be seen for miles. Almost immediately afterwards they received another ECHO call from the Jakobs receptionist.

"We see your signal and your transportation is inbound. Be sure to avoid the satellite marked landing zone. Anything standing in that location will have its face melted off. The Jakobs Corporation would marginally regret if it was your face." The receptionist cheerfully announced, still in that eerie happy tone.

"So what, we just sit here and wait for the-what the!" Maya yelled, being interrupted as a zombie came up from behind and attempted to grab her before having its head cleanly blown off by Zero's revolver. As if one wasn't bad enough, Maya turned around to see more zombies coming from the same direction as the first one. Taking out a Dahl assault rifle*, Maya quickly fired, killing two lance zombies before grabbing a knife from one of them and slamming it into the back of the neck of a third zombie.

"Never seen you do something like that before." Zero stated before putting his revolver away in favor of his sword.

"When you spend so much time around Axton he tends to rub off on you a bit." Maya responded, phaselocking a Defiler, then moving the bubble very quickly to the left while at the same time releasing it, causing the Defiler to splatter a green and red mixture on the wall. "Damn, that was a bit rougher than intended. Wait, where's Salvador?"

"No idea." Zero responded, decapitating a zombie, then throwing his sword at another one, which lodged itself directly in the zombies' throat. Seeing an opportunity, Zero quickly rushed the zombie, grabbed the hilt of his sword and jumped over the zombie's head, cleaving its whole body below the head cleanly in half. The Jakobs receptionist called in again, hopefully with good news.

"There apparently was a clerical error and your ride hasn't been dispatched yet. I'm working to resolve the problem. Sorry about that." The receptionist stated, probably unaware of the increasingly bad situation.

"Seriously? Now these idiots screw up on something?" Maya asked in disbelief, kicking away a zombie before opening fire on it. "Oh you have got to be kidding me!" Maya yelled in frustration as a Tankenstein emerged from the ground. It slowly started advancing before suddenly being hit in the nose with a rocket, the explosion of said rocket detonating the Tankensteins' barrel, burning it alive. Looking to see where the rocket came from, Maya looked up to her left to see Salvador standing on the edge of the platform above her with a rocket launcher in one hand and a Vladof rifle in the other.

"Haha! Fear me pendejos!" Salvador yelled joyfully, firing his Vladof rifle at a wave of charging zombies. After another wave of Defilers and Lance zombies the Jakobs receptionist gave another update, this one no better than the last.

"So, funny story. I forgot to fill out TKP request form 3882, so the fleet, get this, wouldn't send out your transportation. I've taken care of that issue. Ride's inbound. For real this time." The Jakobs receptionist stated.

"God, where does Jakobs find these guys?" Maya asked, wondering if employee quality was truly as low as it seemed right now.

"Is this some sort of joke?" Zero asked, slicing a zombie in half, then quickly swinging upward and cutting another one diagonally.

"No idea, hope Axton isn't zombie chow yet, totally forgot about him." Maya stated, hoping Axton was still alive.

"I can see it on the radar. Any minute now. Remember to avoid the landing zone during final descent. See, I told you I'd take care of it." The Jakobs receptionist stated, finally giving some sort of good news.

"Huh, that's weird, no more zombies?" Maya asked, shooting a crawling torso in the back of its head. Things were back to eerie quiet. This quietness lasted about twenty seconds before the sound of a loud engine could be heard, accompanied by the sight of a large red pod landing where the marker hologram for the drop pod was located.

"Alright, pod's here. Where's Axton?" Salvador asked, looking around for their fourth member. Almost right on cue, they looked back out at where they last saw him to witness the sight of Axton sprinting towards them, still holding the exact same popcorn bag from earlier. This would have been very relieving if he didn't have a horde of zombies and what looked to be a very large Tankenstein chasing him. Realizing that trying to thin out the horde would probably mean killing Axton, the three hunters all grouped up near the pod and watched as Axton quickly sprinted over to them.

"We are going! Now!" Axton frantically spat out, picking up Maya as he reached the second floor platform, sprinting into the pod.

"I can walk just fine asshole!" Maya yelled, attempting to get Axton to drop her.

"I don't care, you move too slow!" Axton said, closing the pod door once all four hunters were very tightly jammed into the one person extraction pod. After landing back in Jakobs Cove, the four hunters fell out of the landed drop pod onto the beach, happy to have personal space again. "God dammit." Axton stated, sitting up.

"What? Something wrong?" Maya asked, wondering what could have happened.

"I dropped my popcorn back in Dead Haven."

Author's Note

Now, due to Stazlerous's most recent review, I went back and redid bits of this chapter, I did notice a bit of a change in the tone of the reviews, so I'm just making up for any mistakes I'm making. I'm sure as hell not going to pull a Nero (Is that his name? Forgot exactly, I'm talking about that Roman guy who just watched as his city burned.) and just let my credibility as a writer hit the shit because of a few miswrites. Let me know what you guys think of the changes and if you think the previous chapters need the same overhaul.

Sorry that this took so long, I literally got writers block on the first sentence of this chapter. I spent days staring at a blank page thinking "God dammit how do I want to start this chapter off" then once I got past that I wrote the rest in a single day. Hopefully things will be better with the next chapter.

*1: Reference to Grunt from Mass Effect 2, its one of his lines if you bring him along on Mordin Solus' recruitment mission when the subject of burning bodies comes up. If you have no idea what I'm talking about I bet you could look up mass effect 2 grunt unique dialogue or something like that on youtube and find it.

*2: I was initially going to make a reference to Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean 2 I think it was, with the whole "jar of dirt" thing. I only cut it out because "I have a bag of popcorn" just doesn't ring as well as "I have a jar of dirt" did in the movie.

*3: I was initially going to describe the gun in more detail, but I figured it would take up too much space. It's one of the guns seen in the back of the borderlands 2 guide. It's a woodland camo, short barreled AR with a holographic sight-like scope on top. In the picture it was called the M5A3, so let me know in reviews if you want me to call it that for future reference. Also, would I be going too far off the deep end to include Bandit weapons, I.E. right as they're starting to be made once Zombie island is finished? I won't go so far as to include E-Tech guns before Eridium is supposed to even be discovered though, that's just pushing things a bit far. Also thank you to all of my followers, favoriters, and reviewers for taking the time to read my fic, and I'm glad you like it. (I know, more suited for a hypothetical "end" but I don't care.)


	6. Chapter 6: esuohrettalpS

Once everyone was reoriented and capable of standing again the four hunters walked back into Jakobs Cove, having conveniently landed right by Ned's infirmary. Upon entering, the four witnessed what was probably one of the last things they expected to see.

"Is that claptrap holding a gun?" Zero asked, confused at the sight of a seemingly harmless steward bot holding a revolver. One of the other hunters probably would've answered, but they were all startled when the armed claptrap fired, killing Ned's claptrap with a single, well placed optic shot.

"Eh, I never liked him anyway." Salvador said casually, shrugging off the death of their guide. The claptrap, which seemed like it was made out of wood, called them over.

"You've been most helpful so far." The Jakobs claptrap announced in that cheery tone all claptraps spoke in. "We require very little more of you. A simple pre-meditated murder, and you'll be on your way! Dr. Ned has become a liability. Take care of that liability, and we'll clean up the mess, then get the mill back in working order. There's gravy and biscuits in it for you, and by that I mean gobs of money!"

"Can't we just take that part literally, I haven't eaten since we got here." Salvador requested, putting one hand on his stomach. The other three hunters then proceeded to slap Salvador on the back of the head in synch. "Alright, alright, sheesh. Nevermind."

"Oh, I almost forgot, you'll need this doodad to get the drawbridge to lower, good luck!" The claptrap said as it handed a component to Axton, who took it and stored it.

"Hey Axton, am I the only one noticing the blips for that wereskag pack job getting closer?" Maya questioned, noticing the increasingly larger green diamonds on her HUD compass. In that very second there was a loud thud, and a large blue wereskag stood up behind Axton, simply standing there. "Uh, Axton?"

"It's right behind me, isn't it?" Axton asked, feeling the wereskag's breath on his shoulders.

"Move, now." Zero quickly said, grabbing his sword hilt and activating it. Right on cue Axton stepped out of the way to witness Zero quickly thrust his sword through the head of the wereskag, killing it immediately.

"Wait, it says the other three are already dead, did you guys do some hunting behind my back or something?" Maya questioned, wondering who killed the other three. She then looked over at the turret guarding the entrance leading to Ned's infirmary, in front of the turret were three dead wereskags, each looking moderately shredded up by gunfire. "Were they really that stupid to all go through that one entrance?"

"These are skags we're talking about, it's not like they're known for brains." Axton reminded. "So anyway lets go, we just have to kill Ned and we'll be out of here." Stepping around the mess of corpses, the four hunters set off for the Lumber Yard. Upon entering the Lumber Yard, the hunters stopped when Ned suddenly ECHOed them.

"Try not to hurt your girl parts on the multitudes of minions I've set upon you!" Ned quickly antagonized, closing down the link before any of the hunters could respond.

"Really? "Girl parts"? Who the fuck says that?" Maya questioned, wondering just how immature Ned really was.

"Maybe you could give him a hands on demonstration of what it's really called while we shoot him." Axton poked sarcastically, then frantically apologizing a few seconds later as Maya moved for a crotch hit. "Seriously, what is with people and hitting me in the balls since we got here?"

"Must just be a popular target." Maya responded sarcastically.

"I'm sure its a favorite target of yours" Axton joked, then reeling back as Maya attempted to hit him with the stock of her rifle. Moving forward, the group came to a stop as they noticed that Ned wasn't kidding with his earlier statement.

"Uh, that's not your average two or three zombies, anybody got a plan?" Axton asked, looking around.

"We could just take it slow and push through, might run out of ammo not too far in though, just trying to run past everyone might end badly too, you have any ideas Zero?" Maya asked, hoping Zero had some sort of a plan.

"No idea, looks like pushing through slowly would be our one option. We probably have a roughly 32% chance of surviving." Zero said grimly, trying to contemplate any other way around. While the three hunters formulated a plan, none of them noticed Salvador pulling out two Vladof rifles that had been modified to use large box mags.

"Hey, Salvador what are you do-oh god." Axton said, horror overtaking him as he realized that Salvador just charged into the zombie horde, guns blazing while yelling his own name as a sort of war cry*.

"He just ran in." Zero stated in disbelief. And with that the three hunters took off after their midget partner.

"I swear, when I get my hands on him." Maya threatened, running as fast as she could from a couple raging psycho zombies.

"My question is how the hell is he not out of ammo yet?" Axton asked, noticing that the constant ring of gunfire wasn't stopping.

"Might've installed ammo regenerators, I heard him talking about them a while back." Maya responded, figuring that was probably how Salvador was keeping up his rate of fire.

"That still doesn't explain why he hasn't reloaded y-" Axton attempted to say before being cut off by Dr. Ned ECHOing in again.

"Hey I'm baking brownies, you want one? Oh shit, wait. I forgot about me trying to shove you off this mortal coil. Can't be given' brownies to just any vengeance driven D-wad now can I? Hey, you know if Zombies like brownies?" Ned asked randomly, yet again closing down the link before he could get a response.

"Well that was random." Maya said, quickly spinning around to shoot one of the psycho zombies with a repeater pistol before continuing to run. Only a couple seconds later the three hunters could hear what sounded like Salvador screaming.

"Oh god, I think they're tearing him limb from limb. What the hell." Axton said grimly, lowering his head a bit in despair as he continued to run.

"Looks more like its the other way around." Zero stated, pointing to Salvador, who was standing on a road leading to the drawbridge they were trying to get to, shredding what seemed to be a near endless stream of zombies into meaty chunks.

"Hey, 'bout time you guys showed up! I thought I was going to be doing this by myself!" Salvador yelled, trying to clear enough zombies for his fellow hunters to make it over.

"Axton, you still have that component the claptrap gave you?" Maya asked, taking out her assault rifle to try and help Salvador thin out the herd of zombies.

"Yeah, I'm going to try and rush for the drawbridge, maybe this'll actually be easy." Axton called out as he ran for the drawbridge, clotheslining a sprinting zombie with his hatchet along the way. Once at the drawbridge, Axton activated the lowering mechanism, which caused the raised section of the bridge to begin a very sluggish, agonizingly slow descent into position. "Really? Does anything around here move faster than Maya that one time she was drunk?"

"What?" Maya yelled, tempted to shoot Axton instead of the zombies.

"Uh, nothing!" Axton frantically responded, fearing what would happen otherwise. Seeing that the bridge wasn't about to make any miraculous progress anytime soon, Axton ran to help the other hunters.

"Well this isn't going quite as planned." Maya said, barely stopping a zombie from grabbing her before kicking it into Salvador's line of fire. Even with all four hunters, the zombies just weren't stopping. The hunters slowly started backing up, still not ceasing fire as the undead slowly cornered them up against the bridge.

"Well this is a corny way to go, cornered by zombies. Damn you George Romero!" Axton yelled, annoyed that they were going to die a cornered death.

"Wait, anybody else hear that?" Maya asked, noticing a loud thumping noise getting closer.

"I swear it wasn't me this time." Salvador said defensively, misunderstanding what Maya was referring to.

"What? No! I mean those vibrations in the ground. It feels like something big is-holy hell…" Maya stared in shock as three Tankensteins were stampeding towards them.

"Come on you piece of crap, go faster!" Axton yelled, hitting the button to lower the bridge frantically. And much to everybody's surprise, the bridge quickly dropped from about halfway down to fully in place in one quick drop.

"Well shit that's convenient." The four hunters said in sync as the gate blocking the now lowered bridge slid out of view. The four hunters started to make a mad dash across the bridge, hoping the Tankensteins would in-fight, sadly they were wrong.

"Shit!" Maya yelled as a Tankenstein grabbed her by the legs and lifted her into the air. The Tankenstein then held her upside down at face level and let out a loud yell. "Hey buddy, hope you're hungry." Maya playfully said as she threw an explosive MIRV grenade into the Tankenstein's mouth. Surprised by the sudden throw, the Tankenstein dropped Maya, and stumbled around as it swallowed the grenade. "Seriously? That did absolutely noth-" Maya was abruptly cut off as the first grenade went off, then the rest of them, all within the Tankenstein's stomach, which once it reached the outside, the shrapnel detonated the Tankenstein's barrel. The combined force of all the explosions decimated the Tankenstein, splattering organs, limbs, and blood across the bridge. The only intact piece left being the legs.

"Now that's the kind of shit that should get us an M rating!*" Axton quickly blurted out randomly.

"What?" Maya asked, getting back up.

"Uh, nothing. Random thought. Lets keep going." Axton said quickly, trying to change the subject.

"What about the other two Tankensteins?" Maya asked, wondering where they suddenly went. Looking back at where they stepped onto the bridge, she saw two Tankensteins passed out, perfectly in line with the sides of the bridge, presumably having run into the bridge itself. "Ok, I know zombies are supposed to be stupid but what the hell! It would probably take two brains for these friggin' morons to walk straight!"

"Whatever, they don't look like they'll be bothering us any time soon so lets just get to Ned already." Axton said, motioning in the direction they needed to be going. Once off the bridge they were ECHOed by Ned yet again.

"Keep coming! I don't care! I actually designed this shit in stages, so it would be more entertaining for me." Ned stated, continuing in his typical fashion of closing the link immediately afterward.

"He designed this? So what, does he have some sort of a board layout or something where he decides how many zombies go where or something?" Maya speculated, wondering how it all added up. The other hunters simply shrugged. A few seconds later their ECHO devices came online again.

"Hey guys just wanted to let you know that I found another hunter, she's-" It was Roland, who was cut off by Maya, who assumed it was Dr. Ned at first.

"Ok seriously, we get it asshole! We get you designed this in stages, we get that you want to kill us, and we don't give a flying fuck that you're making brownies, so whatever you have to say, shove it up your ass!" Maya quickly yelled, wanting to get a word in against who she assumed would be Ned, before closing down the link on her end.

(On Roland's end of the link, in his apartment in T-Bone Junction.)

"Ok…" Roland said, trying to wrap his head around what he just heard.

"What happened?" Mordecai asked, looking over at Roland.

"I just heard them yelling something about stages, me wanting to kill them, and something about brownies." Roland stated, still trying to understand how the rant he just heard made any comprehensible sense.

"Eh, maybe the island's screwing with them, I heard that place is all sorts of weird." Mordecai said, looking over the vault key piece they had just stolen from Sledge.

(Back at Zombie Island)

"Zombie killin', this is new and different." A voice played over an ECHO recorder the four hunters found on a nearby dock. "Steve and I have hunted a lot of things, skag, crabworms, even went after Mothrakk once. These brain suckers are pretty freaky but, eh, they're not so tough. Still, I'm happy my best pal Steve is with me. Yo Steve! There's one behind you!"

"Heyooo!" Another voice yelled out, followed by a couple gunshots.

"The forest is teeming with these zombie buggers, but so far, so good. Still, we gotta find this doc if we're gonna get our reward." The first voice said again, before the recording ended.

"Well he's probably dead." Maya stated bluntly, not really sounding worried at all.

"Yeah probably." Axton responded. The four hunters moved on and up the hill in front of them. Stopping near the top as they saw four wereskags sprint up to them. one wereskag ran for Maya, one for Axton, and two for Zero.

The two that were running for Zero had already mutated, having their distinct bright red claws. The wereskags flanked Zero, one running to his right, one to his left. Zero simply stood there, sword by his side, staring out at the Lumber Mill he and his fellow hunters were trying to reach. Seeing an opportunity, the two skags charged at the same time, both thrusting their clawed hands at Zero's sides. It seemed like this was his end, but upon stabbing Zero, the two wereskags noticed that their claws went through Zero, who flickered, and instead they ended up impaling each other. This wasn't enough to kill either one, but the force with which the two wereskags lunged had left both of them unable to remove their claws. Seeing his opportunity, Zero deactivated his optical camo, then lunged at the two wereskags. Doing a horizontal sword swing, Zero cleanly slashed both Skags in half, killing both of them. Zero then displayed a :D emote from his faceplate.

Meanwhile, Axton, remembering how he took out that wereskag back at the hospital, took out a shotgun, this one being a Torgue brand instead of Jakobs. The wereskag charged, lowering its head almost like some sort of Bull. As it got closer, Axton aimed the shotgun, then fired at its legs, blowing one off and badly injuring the other due to the explosive rounds Torgue guns used. After falling onto the ground, the wereskag roared, receiving another shell in its mouth in return, killing it for good.

Wanting to experiment again, Maya let the Wereskag charge at her. At the last second, Maya phaselocked the wereskag. Smiling quickly at the wereskag in a very "You're fucked, have fun" manner, Maya swung her left arm up, moving the phaselock bubble into the air. Once the wereskag was a good forty feet off of the ground, she released the wereskag, causing it to free fall back to the ground with a very gut wrenching crack, signaling a broken spinal cord. The wereskag didn't move.

"Ah come on, I walk away for two minutes and you guys have all sorts of fun without me!" Salvador yelled, walking up to his fellow hunters.

"You weren't behind us?" Maya asked, under the assumption that Salvador had been there the whole time.

"Alright what's Jakobs paying you?" It was Ned trying to contact them again. "I'd offer to double it, but I'm poor as dirt after spending every cent I had into the recreational use of the undead as money makers. So far not digging my plan in hindsight."

"That reminds me, how much is Jakobs paying us for this?" Maya asked, wondering how much money they would get out of this.

"Forty thousand, so ten thousand for each of us, why?" Axton asked, looking over at Maya, who wasn't there anymore. "Ah jesus, what happened this time?"

"Salvador went running in again." Zero said, pointing at the echoing gunfire in the valley-like area in front of them right as a large explosion went off.

"And Maya?"

"She ran off with him as soon as you said forty thousand." Zero stated, just as a group of three zombies was launched into the air, before free-falling back to their, well, second deaths. And with that the two hunters ran to catch up with their partners, awestruck at the level of destruction a money driven Siren and midget could cause. After a few moments, they caught up with their teammates outside a small bridge with a sign that read Jakobs Lumber Mill on it. Once regrouped, the four hunters proceeded down the bridge side by side, offset by how quiet it was. Once about two thirds of the way across the bridge, the hunters stopped as a Tankenstein quickly rounded the corner and charged. Not wanting to turn back, Axton aimed his Torgue shotgun at the Tankenstein's feet, Maya pulled out a Dahl incendiary smg, Zero raised his sniper rifle, aiming for the gas tank on its back, and Salvador pulled out two Vladof rocket launchers. In the same moment, the four hunters opened fire. Between being burned, blown up, sniped, and blown up some more, the Tankenstein was annihilated. Once stepping past the bloody, unidentifiable remains of the Tankenstein, the hunters were contacted by Dr. Ned.

"Ok now you're just getting my dress all a'twitter. If I have to get out of bed and kill you I sure as hell will! Yeah, I'm ECHO communicating from bed, so what?" Ned ranted, right as the gate in front of them dropped to reveal a group of Zombies. This would be no problem at all, but Axton told the others to hold fire.

"Its not like they're just going to let us by, so why stop?" Maya asked, failing to see Axton's logic.

"I've given my turret some improvements since we got here." Axton said, looking over at Maya. "Hey! You boys meet the misses?" Axton yelled at the zombies, throwing his turret down, which unfolded to reveal a second barrel, a green laser sight, and two large box rocket launchers attached to the turret. Once fully unfolded, the turret quickly locked onto the group of zombies and fired a salvo of rockets, leaving nothing behind except charred ground and blood stains. The hunters simply stood there and watched as Axton's turret continued to take on a rushing swarm of zombies, not letting any of them get close. Once the way was clear, they moved up towards the actual Lumber Mill itself.

"Wow, big trees." Axton said, almost sounding awestruck at the sight of the massive trees.

"Reminds me of his ego sometimes." Maya whispered to Salvador, who chuckled lightly. Evidently not hearing Maya's comment, Axton led the group on through the Lumber Mill. The amount of zombies actually inside the mill was surprisingly low, considering the horde that had been encountered a while back. While moving through the sound of light footsteps could be heard on the nearby logs.

"Anybody else hear that?" Maya asked, hoping the island was just being its upside down self again.

"Yeah, wereskags may-" Axton was cut off as a wereskag leapt from a nearby log at him, faceplanting with a very audible thud right in front of him. "Well that answers that." Axton said as he fired on the dazed wereskag. The wereskag was quick to react, standing up as Axton fired. The resulting blast from some of the explosions skinning the front of the wereskags' face. Letting out a dog-like yelp, the wereskag decided he wasn't worth it and fled.

"I'm really hoping he _doesn't_ come back with help." Maya said, fearing what would happen.

"What's the worst it could be, its not like there's an army of those things out there, right? Right?" Salvador asked, starting to fear he just jinxed them all. Deciding to ignore it, the four hunters moved on, dropping whatever zombies were unlucky enough to get in their way.

"Well this is anticlimactic, we finally get here and it's near empty." Maya said, almost disappointed by the lack of zombies so close to the end.

"Alright people, this is it!" Axton yelled enthusiastically at his fellow hunters, turning to face them while standing in front of the lift into the actual Mill itself. "We're going to go in, find Ned, and kick his ass! He's going to be wishing we never showed up by the time we're…" Axton trailed off, eyes growing wide as he saw what was assembling behind his fellow hunters.

"Axton? Dude you're acting like you saw an army of wereskags or-fuck." Maya said, turning around to see exactly that, a horde of wereskags lining up on top of the logs behind them. A few seconds later another wereskag with a blood covered face and chunks of missing skin jumped in front. Signaling the other wereskags, the injured one pointed at the hunters, then roared, which basically meant "Rush them".

"Ok so with that said fucking run!" Axton frantically said, turning around and rushing for the elevator, the other three hunters right behind him. As soon as all four hunters were in, Axton slammed the door shut, hearing a very loud smack noise as a wereskag ran headfirst into the door. Afterwards the four hunters rode the lift up to Ned's floor, stepping off into a small room with a few vending machines. Maya moved over to a weapons vendor.

"Getting something I assume?" Axton asked, wondering what Maya was about to get.

"Yeah." Maya said, turning away from the vending machine as she slid a Tediore rocket launcher onto her back before taking out her Dahl assault rifle.

"Ok, he could be anywhere in here, so lets stay together, keep your guns up and maybe with a bit of luck we'll make it out with all limbs attached." Axton said, almost killing the morale with his last warning. The hunters moved through what seemed to be a makeshift office-like area, Salvador in front with a Torgue shotgun in each hand, Maya and Axton side by side in the middle with assault rifles, and Zero in the back with a Jakobs semi-auto assault rifle.

"Well, you got me out of bed. Now I'm just pissed off! I love slippers, love to wear them. Now I'm just gonna have to kill you." Ned threatened, evidently forgetting to turn off the ECHO link for once, as the sound of sheets ruffling, and then the sound of somebody tripping, falling, and glass breaking could be heard. "Aw dammit! I actually liked that thing! Damn vault hunters." After which the ECHO link closed down. Proceeding on, the four hunters quickly eliminated the zombies standing between them and Ned. After a few rooms they finally made it to where their GPS was leading them, a large open room with a few walkways and medical beds laying around. Everybody quickly raised their guns as they saw Ned step around the corner.

"You smell like popcorn, now I'm pissed!" Ned threatened, giving the hunters the middle finger before starting to pull out an smg. He was abruptly interrupted when a loud sniper shot could be heard, followed by Ned dropping to the ground. Surprised, three of the hunters all looked at Zero, who was holding a sniper rifle.

"We've been here long enough, I wasn't about to let this drag out any longer." Zero stated in a very final tone, putting away his sniper rifle and walking over to Neds corpse, the other hunters followed. All four hunters stopped as the "Ned killed" objective on their HUDs suddenly unchecked itself, and Neds corpse almost exploded. It then stood back up, now horribly disfigured and much larger. Not staying to fight, Undead Ned turned around, slashed open some grating of the floor, and jumped down, taunting the other hunters to come after him. Without hesitation, the four hunters charged, all jumping down the hole one after another. Once everybody had safely landed at the bottom, they decided to spread out across the large, organic room. Axton went straight down the middle, not noticing Ned emerge from the ground behind him. Ned raised his blade arm, just about to cleave Axton vertically in half before a rocket struck him in the back. Ned turned to see Maya standing there, aiming her rocket launcher at him. Ned quickly advanced, ignoring the gunfire from the other hunters, instead going on a hell-bent B-Line for Maya. Maya looked through the sights on the launcher, then pulled the trigger once the crosshairs were directly on Neds head. The very next thing to be heard made Maya's heart drop.

"Launcher Jammed. Please call a Tediore representative for a free replacement." A synthetic female voice coming from the launcher said.

"Gah! Infernal piece of crap!" Maya yelled, hitting the side of the launcher. Evidently Maya triggered the gun to reload, as a rocket kicked in at the back of the launcher, sending it flying out of her hands. It flew a couple feet before impacting with the head of the charging Dr. Ned. The force of the jet rammed the launcher solidly into Ned's mouth, then kept going, ripping Ned's head and spinal cord (In badass slow motion) clean out of his body before impacting with a wall, destroying the launcher and Ned's head, killing him for good. Maya's moment of victory was very short lived, as the now headless corpse of Dr. Ned fell forward, onto Maya. "Ah dammit!"

"Hey Maya, never knew you were into that sort of stuff." Axton teased, almost knowing he was going to regret it.

"Yeah yeah very funny. Can you help get this big thing off of me?" Maya asked. After sliding Ned's corpse off, the four hunters followed their GPS to a nearby tunnel, eventually leading them to a wooden door. Stepping through the door, the four hunters stepped outside to what was probably the worst thing that had happened since they got here.

"Alright well that's-ah piss." Axton said, realizing that the door they stepped through led them back to Jakobs Cove. The bad part was that the shack they were in front of was surrounded by the wereskag army from earlier, with the blood-nosed skag standing face to face with him. They sat there for a few seconds, looking away as a loud thumping noise could be heard, increasing slowly in volume. Blood-Nose and the four hunters all turned to see the massive Tankenstein from Dead Haven stomping his way slowly over to the hunters, nudging wereskags out of his way until he was directly in front of the hunters.

"Wait wait wait, I know this guy! Yeah we are screwed*." Salvador said, laughing at first then going monotone.

"Ok well I would love to stay and chat but…bye!" Axton yelled, shoving Blood-Nose to the ground and taking off full speed for the fast travel station, the other hunters right behind him. Zero was the first one there, who started to set the station for T-Bone Junction.

"Ok thats it, next time Jakobs wants something done they can do it their damn selves!" Maya yelled, sidestepping as a wereskag tried to leap at her.

"Location is set, hurry!" Zero yelled for the first time, motioning for the other hunters to hurry. Salvador made it, then Maya, then finally Axton, who slammed into Maya and almost caused the four hunters to have a domino effect, being narrowly saved by the fast travel kicking in. After a few seconds the four hunters were transported into the zombie free safety of the T-Bone Junction transit hub. Once everyone caught their breath they walked through the door into the main waiting area. The room was mostly vacant aside from what appeared to be a 14 year old girl with a prosthetic arm sitting down with her legs crossed, holding a Vladof rifle in her lap. She had a grey mostly sleeveless hoodie jacket, a red skirt, long white and black striped leggings, and basic sneakers on. Her hair was deep red, done up in two ponytails, with a pair of goggles on her forehead. She looked over at the four hunters, then stood up.

"Hey, you guys vault hunters? Roland told me to wait here for you, said you could use a bit of help. The name's Gaige." Gaige said, formally introducing herself.

"Roland sent us a little girl? Really? I mean come on, what are you going to do? Make the bandits die of cuteness overload or some…thing." Axton started to rant, before being abruptly cut off as a floating mech rose up out of the ground, then put itself directly face to oversized optic with Axton. "Uh you know what? I take back what I said, glad to have you with us Gaige, please don't liquify me." Axton frantically apologized, backing up from the floating mech.

"Ok well now that that's over with what about our money?" Salvador asked, wanting to get paid.

"Oh yeah that's right. Lets see, ten thousand for you, ten thousand for Zero, and twenty thousand for me." Axton said, directing the funds to each hunters' personal inventory.

"What the hell? I was there too." Maya said angrily, wondering where her payment went.

"Sorry, you don't get yours until you follow up on your promise." Axton said, smiling slightly.

"Promise? What promise?" Maya asked, hoping that Axton was just trying to be an ass for a bit.

"Back in Dead Haven you said that if I distracted those zombies, you would be all mine for a night. I did that, you follow up on your end, you get your ten thousand." Axton responded.

"Fuck."

Author's Note

So there we go. Took days of rewriting and rethinking this chapter. I figured to make up for the crappiness in quality of the first version of the last chapter, I decided to treat you guys with a monster sized "Finale Chapter". This isn't the end of the story, but it was the ending of the Dr. Ned dlc. Sorry that it took as long as it did

*Note

*1: Leeroy Jenkins reference. No I don't play WoW, I just thought that one phrase is so damn popular I just had to include it.

*2: Splatterhouse 2010 remake: The terror mask says that, breaking the fourth wall for a moment.

*3: Splatterhouse 2010 remake: Biggy man cutscene, the terror mask says that as a joke about Biggy Man being such a fan favorite.

Also a few things I wanted to say. The title of the chapter may seem weird, but its a reference in itself, its supposed to be Splatterhouse spelled backwards as a joke about the fact that I use so many Splatterhouse references. Second, Gaige is here to stay, the crew number is now at five and it's going to stay like that, this is sure as hell no brief appearance. And third, I guess I kinda created a bit of an OC by having that injured skag live and then calling him Blood-Nose, I don't think as it stands that we'll see much more of him in future chapters, I'll make sure to prove myself wrong on that if for some reason you guys actually want to see more of him. Also, I know fanfic writers sometimes reference other writer's OC's or just straight up borrow them for their own story, Blood-Nose is officially available. If for some reason you guys want to put him in something, go right ahead. I check for new stories and updates in this section, so I'm most likely going to read it. I would actually take it as a compliment if somebody liked him enough to want to use him.

And finally, to DiosSegador9898: I say do it. There needs to be more good borderlands stories, so I will gladly read and review your story. Another fic I recommend reading is Pandora's Vault, that's where I got the idea to do exactly this: Putting weird, yet pretty badass dreams I've been having lately into a story format and posting them here on fanfiction. That's exactly what this story has been, dreams that I've had. It just takes a while to try and remember them, then write them out. I'm not saying yours has to be dreams, just do it the way you want to, and don't let other people deter you from it.


	7. Chapter 7: Crimson Overwatch

After a brief debate between Maya and Axton (Meaning Axton being phaselocked until he gave in to paying Maya) the hunters set their ECHO devices to designate Gaige as a member of their group, then stepped outside.

"So, what happened to your arm? Run-in with a skag?" Salvador asked, curious as to how Gaige got her prosthetic arm.

"No, cut it off myself with a particle saw." Gaige replied, not sounding traumatized or depressed in the slightest about it.

"Really? Was your original arm not good enough or something?" Axton asked, joining in on the conversation.

"It was ok, but not only does this prosthetic let me summon DT when I want, it's also strong enough to smash concrete!" Gaige cheered happily, before swinging her left arm at a nearby wall, causing cracks to run up the whole side of the building and leaving a small, fist sized hole at the impact area.

"So we're keeping her, right?" Salvador asked Axton, totally sold on the idea of bringing her with.

"Damn right!" Axton responded before getting an alert on his ECHO device:

_Meet us at the Shotz Bar, bring your whole group._

_Roland_

After that the hunters walked over to the outdoor bar, Maya deciding to stay at the back of the group after what happened last time they went there.

"Hey Roland, there something you wanted to tell-what the!" Gaige yelled, falling for the exact same Brick hug scenario that happened to Maya last time.

"For god's sake Brick, is it physically possible for a girl to walk up behind you and you _don't_ think they're your sister?" Mordecai asked, standing up from his seat just like last time. After realizing his repeated mistake, Brick dropped Gaige just as ungracefully as he had Maya before.

"Don't worry, he's done that to me a couple times." Lilith said, helping Gaige back on her feet. Once that was over Roland turned around and addressed the other hunters.

"Ok well, now that we're all here there's something you five need to see." Roland said in a serious tone.

"Ok, where is it? Maya asked, stepping forward once she knew she was safe from being nearly suffocated again.

"In my apartment, its a bit big, and if the Crimson Lance caught sight of it, we'd be in a whole new world of trouble." Roland responded, standing up from his seat and signaling for the others to follow him. After a small walk, the large nine hunter group arrived at Roland's apartment. The group slowly stepped inside to the sight of an apartment that somewhat resembled Maya's, except it was much larger, more furniture, and instead of siren documents there was a large, slightly pointed white rock with alien symbols laying on the table in the center of the room. The hunters all found various places to settle in for the upcoming speech they were expecting from Roland.

"So…what is this?" Gaige asked, feeling a bit out of the loop.

"This, is the Vault Key. Well, a piece of it to be exact." Roland responded.

"So what's the problem? We're a step closer, so I don't see what's so bad." Maya said, not seeing why Roland and his group of hunters were acting worried.

"Well see there's the problem. When we took the key piece from Sledge's Safehouse, we attracted some attention." Roland said, seemingly not wanting to just get to the point.

"Basically what he's trying to say is we pissed off the biggest corporation to ever exist, so now they want the key piece, and they want us dead. Order doesn't matter." Lilith stated, deciding to get to the point.

"Atlas?" Maya asked, hoping she was wrong.

"Yeah, Atlas. As in the guys who run the Crimson Lance that practically govern the planet. We were contacted by some Commandant Steele person. She wants us to turn ourselves in and give the key piece to them. Thankfully they don't know that we have the key piece stashed here. They will probably make our job a lot harder though." Roland said, giving the whole group the full rundown of recent events. Roland was about to say something else before being abruptly cut off by an unknown source contacting all of them over the ECHOnet. The unknown contact sighed before starting to speak.

"Alright. This is General Knoxx. I don't really want to be here. This place smells like hemorrhoids wrapped in bacon. I sent Steele to this planet to take care of the local Bandit problem and also because-seriously have you heard her? She talks all the time. And hello, have you met our friend the sun?! So, I guess thanks for giving me something interesting to do, what, on account of you Vault Hunters not wanting to turn yourselves in. So, yeah…ordered a full military occupation of the planet. Also I'm going to kill you and stuff. Cheers mate." The newly introduced General Knoxx stated, closing down the ECHO transmission immediately after.

"Full military occupation? Did I just hear that right?" Gaige asked, almost in disbelief.

"Yeah, that's pretty much what just happened." Roland responded, sounding strangely calm.

"This is gonna be fun." Gaige stated, almost seemingly enjoying the thought of nine badasses taking on a mega-corporation.

"Ok, so…What now? This third of a key isn't going to serve any use short of clubbing somebody to death with it. And with Atlas hellbent on killing us things will be much harder, any suggestions?" Maya asked, hoping somebody would get an idea.

"Well there is one thing. The Crimson Lance know about the four of us, as you can tell by the Wanted posters that are starting to show up around T-Bone. You five on the other hand, they have no idea that you're also looking for the Vault because you guys weren't at Sledge's Safehouse. So, you five try and figure out some way to get under Atlas's skin, they'll be distracted, we'll try and find these remaining Vault key shards, and then we'll all make a nine person charge for the Vault with Atlas right on our ass, sound good?" Roland asked , looking around at the other hunters.

"Works for me, question is, what could five people do that would distract a company as big as Atlas?" Axton questioned, wondering what could grab the undivided attention of such a large company.

"Well if they're pulling a full military occupation, they have to have an invasion stockpile. Probably stashed in some fortified complex out in this wasteland area near the highways. I figure, find out where General Knoxx is, kill him, loot the stockpile. If we sell whatever we don't hold onto from that pile to Marcus, then he sells it to the Bandits…" Roland trailed off, hoping someone would catch on to what he was trying to say.

"Then the bandits will get cocky with all their new firepower, and they'll launch a full scale war on Atlas, leaving the Crimson Lance too busy with the Bandits to worry about us. I like it." Maya said, finishing Roland's statement.

"Exactly. Question is where to start, I mean, its not like we have an ex-Atlas member as an informant or something." Roland stated, right before another unknown contact called them on the ECHOnet.

"Atlas is here for two things: power and the extermination of the local bandit population, which they count you as a part of. We share a common enemy, you and I. The reward for your deaths are second only to mine. That alone should be reason for you to join my cause, but if it is not, and your greed precedes you, then you will gain access to all of their weapons. Their invasion stockpile will be yours. We must speak in person immediately, but I'm afraid for my own security and therefore you must jump through a hoop or two. Talk to the mechanic, he knows where to find me. And a word of caution, don't touch him if you ever want to eat with your hands again. Athena, out." The new contact, evidently named Athena, announced. And as always, the link was closed down before anybody could say anything.

"Well that's convenient." Roland , almost in disbelief at the perfect timing. "She's probably referring to Scooter, so head down to Scooter's garage, see what he has to say. Also, the Catch-A-Rides in this area have been on the fritz lately, so the runners aren't in the system around here."

"So? We still have that Bandit Technical we stole, so I don't see what the big issue is." Axton stated, not understanding what the issue was.

"Well there's the problem, if the Crimson Lance are staging a takeover, they're probably going to want control of the highways. By the end of this night cycle they'll probably have barriers set up to bar any non Catch-A-Ride vehicles from passing, so see if Scooter can get you a more appropriate vehicle for waging a war on an elite PMC. Last time I saw him he said he was working on some beefed up runner just in case this sort of thing came around. Maybe you can help him finish it." Roland said, standing up afterwards. And with that the five hunter group stepped outside to the sight of what was probably the last thing they wanted to see.

The Crimson Lance were everywhere. Soldiers patrolling the streets, APCs driving through, drones flying overhead, Wanted posters and recruitment ads stapled on the walls. It truly was a military occupation.

"Well shit." Zero, Maya, Axton, Salvador, and Gaige all stated, humorously in sync at the sight of the sudden occupation.

Author's Note

Sorry it took so long, between tests and decreasing motivation to write, this chapter spent a large amount of time unwritten at all. But after hearing the song Funeral by Silent Civilian for the first time, and seeing just how many people are liking my story, I got my motivation back. Aiming for a shorter wait in between this chapter and the next one. And also, the reason why some dialogue is modified is because the General Knoxx dlc is supposed to take place after the opening of the Vault, didn't realize that until I started writing this chapter. So I modified things a little bit so that it still makes comprehensible sense.

Note to MEleeSmasher: Yeah, all the borderlands 2 dlc will be incorporated as well, all I'm trying to decide on is if it should be before or after the ending of borderlands 2.

Also, one more thing I wanted to say.

2: Some other, new fics that are starting up in the borderlands section that deserve a bit more recognition are New-U, Gaige's ECHO logs, Mechro, Tiny Tina: 7 Days to Kill, and High School for the Certifiably Insane. I've read all of them up to where they're at right now and they're all good, especially New-U. So go ahead and read them too, leave a review if you want, just let them know that people like what they're writing.


	8. Chapter 8: Smokin' Jesus (And Car Parts)

"Well, when Knoxx said military occupation he wasn't kidding." Axton stated, looking around as a drone flew by and locked down on a nearby sidewalk.

"Yeah, lets get to Scooter and see about this beefed up runner." Maya answered, starting to walk towards Scooters garage.

"There's a lot of Lance troops for one small town, don't you think?" Gaige asked, looking around as they walked towards the garage.

"It's probably because T-Bone is the closest thing Pandora has to a central transit hub between the areas on this side of Pandora, and not everybody likes to use the fast travel to get everywhere." Axton responded, staring at what seemed to be two Lance infantry arresting a man at gunpoint. "Let's just keep our heads down and stay out of trouble for now." Now hurrying to Scooter's, the Vault Hunters quickly entered and closed the door behind them.

"Hey, you're those other Vault Hunters Roland mentioned! Now I'm going to have to speak in code, so I hope you have the mental capacity to follow." Scooter said, whispering the last part. _For you code is probably a complicated sentence _Maya thought, rolling her eyes when Scooter mentioned code. " Your "lady friend" told me to send you to "Moxxi's place". Heh, if you know what I'm saying." Scooter whispered, using air-quotes for "lady friend" and "Moxxi's place".

"Alright, well what about that new runner Roland said you were working on? Our Bandit Technical isn't going to get past any blockades, and I _really_ don't feel like walking the whole time." Maya asked, pointing to what looked like the half-built shell of a large vehicle.

"Ah yeah, that thing. It's kinda done… It's got wheels, and it can drive. You'll need a couple more parts if you want it to drive without going boom after a few seconds though…" Scooter contemplated, not realizing how morbid his statement was.

"Yeah..that would be nice. So we get these parts, install them, digi-scan it and drive off?" Gaige asked, trying to forget Scooter's previous statement.

"Pretty much. You should be able to find the parts I need around T-Bone. Just be careful of the Lance around. Sum'bitches'll shoot you faster than you can say busted girl parts if they catch you stealing something." Scooter responded nonchalantly before sitting down.

"Right…I say lets just get going on that now." Gaige stated, slowly starting to walk back out the door while seeming thoroughly creeped out. Right behind Gaige, the other hunters followed, stopping just outside the garage to plan their next move.

"Ok, well. Now that we have _that_ experience over, lets get these parts." Axton announced, switching his active quest to show Scooter's part list. Once everyone had it selected, Scooter contacted them on the ECHO.

"Alright! What I'm gonna need is an X-372 Supercharger, but not the 373…there was a recall on those on account of people burnin' alive an' shit." Axton fidgeted uncomfortably upon hearing that detail. "Also, a big ol' tank of nitrous, and one of them fancy exhaust things. I don't even know what it does man!" Scooter read off the list and hung up.

"Great, so we're scavenging for parts in a military occupied junkhole for a mechanic who doesn't even know what an exhaust port is. Might as well speed up the process a bit. Gaige and Salvador, you two go get the supercharger, Zero, you get the Exhaust port, and me and Maya will get the nitrous tank. Everyone agree?" Axton asked, figuring that seeing as how zombies aren't involved maybe splitting up will actually go right for once.

"Alright, come on shorty." Gaige said jokingly before walking off towards the X-372's waypoint.

"Hey! I have a name you know! _Joder_ _perra corta_." Salvador mumbled as he ran to catch up with Gaige.

"Well, they seem to be getting along well. So Zero, you got the waypoint to the exhaust port? Zero?" Axton asked, turning around to see Zero already gone. "Well, I'll take that as a yes."

With Gaige and Salvador

The two hunters quietly walked, turning to their left and heading down a staircase. All the while Gaige was trying to think of the best way to go about talking to a midget with more muscles than inches in height. Looking over the edge of the railing in boredom, Gaige was surprised at what she saw.

"Wait, this place is just sitting here, supported probably a hundred miles off the ground by some half-assed concrete pillars?" Gaige asked, surprised that the city has held up as long as it has. Seeing that Salvador was ignoring her question, Gaige decided to drop it and keep walking. Turning the corner of the building they were next to, the two found their target. It looked like some choppy, poorly put together engine block. After looking it over for a few seconds, Gaige turned and stared at Salvador.

"What?" Salvador questioned, wondering why Gaige was staring at him.

"We found it, you going to pick it up already?" Gaige asked, wondering why Salvador was waiting.

"You can pick it up, miss _arm strong enough to smash concrete_." Salvador responded, sounding slightly annoyed.

"That's _one_ arm. How am I going to be able to hold up the weight on the other side with my regular arm? You're the one with the crazy muscles." Gaige pointed out, smiling. Realizing he lost, Salvador walked over to the supercharger, grumbling the whole way. After heaving it up with both hands Scooter unexpectedly phoned in.

"Oh smokin' jesus titty cinnamon that is a _monster!_ That's gonna be _sweet!_" Scooter yelled over the Echo comm, hanging up like everybody else does immediately afterward. Not expecting Scooter to start cheering, Salvador accidentally dropped the supercharger directly on top of his foot. The following colorful demonstration of the Spanish language could be heard across T-Bone.

With Axton and Maya

"So, what do you think of Gaige?" Axton asked, looking around for the nitrous tank in a pile of garbage along the wall of a parking lot.

"I like her. I also get the feeling she and will get along beautifully." Maya responded, standing behind Axton to keep an eye out for any passing Lance troops.

"Let me guess: because she scared the living crap out of me with that big robot thing?" Axton questioned, expecting to already know the answer.

"Yeah pretty much. You know what that thing's called? Because I doubt that if she's smart enough to make a big killer robot that can digi-struct itself, that she would call it big robot thing." Maya asked, straining her eyes to try and see something in the sky.

"No idea, she did say something about "DT" when she was explaining her arm though. What do you think it stands for? My guess is it's probably called Digi-trap." Axton said, moving a few garbage bags out of the way.

"Digi-trap? Really? That's the best you could come up with?" Maya asked in disbelief at Axton's lack of creativity.

"What? You have anything better?" Axton asked back, still rummaging for the nitrous tank.

"Yeah. You seen all the skulls she's got? She's got two or three on her outfit and she painted a cartooney skull on her bot. Chances are she named it Death-Trap or something like that." Maya answered, noticing that the object in the sky was slowly getting closer.

"You know what, you wanna bet? I'll ask her and we'll see who's got it right. Deal?" Axton asked, wanting to settle the debate fast.

"Deal. You find that damn nitro tank yet? The GPS says it's right here yet you've been looking for five minutes now." Maya answered, that object in the sky still getting slowly closer, now picking up speed a bit.

"Yeah, it should be right-aha! Found it!" Axton cheered, standing back up with the nitro tank in hand. What followed immediately after surprised both of them.

"¡Dios lo que el carajo! ¡Joder imbécil de campesino que jode carajos remilgados, pequeños y maliciosos! ¡Carajo! "

"Was that Salvador yelling in Spanish?" Axton asked, sounding slightly confused.

"Yeah, he doesn't usually go on for that long. I wonder what the hell got him so up-." Maya was cut off by the sound of what could practically be considered an explosion as a large pod smashed into the ground behind them. Both hunters turned around to see a group of what looked to be five women in armor step out. "Ok, well…maybe they're friendly?" Upon seeing the two hunters, the new arrivals each pulled out what looked to be cheap knock-offs of Zero's sword and ran at them.

"Ah Jesus." The two hunters said in sync.

With Zero

After literally climbing up the side of Scooter's garage and jumping across to the raised area of T-Bone, it looked like a straight shot to his target. There was only one hitch: two Lance were standing by his target.

"Struck by sheer boredom/They will not expect me there/This will be easy." Zero said to himself in haiku before setting his decoy where he was standing. Now invisible, Zero lightly crept around the car that the two Lance were guarding and snuck up behind them. Deciding to see if he could get anything useful, Zero waited a few seconds.

"So, did you hear about those Vault Hunters?" One of the Lance asked, looking over at the other.

"Yeah, I heard there's nine of them now. Also heard some shit about a second siren and that little girl." The second Lanceman answered back.

"Oh, her? You mean the one we lost on Eden-5 who splattered her classmate all over the walls?" The first Lance questioned, checking his rifle.

"Yep. Looks like all types of crazy come to this shithole. Also heard something about that Zero dude, you know, the one who looks like a living pole?" The second lance asked.

"Oh yeah, him. If you ask me he's probably just a fake. I could probably take that six foot freak one on one, no problem." The first Lance trooper bragged, sounding full of himself.

"Why don't we find out." Zero spoke up. Alarmed, the two Lance troopers quickly spun around to the sight of Zero de-cloaking right as he activated his sword, ramming it through the second Lanceman's chest. Angered, the first Lanceman dropped his rifle and ran at Zero, fist raised in preparation to swing. Anticipating his movements, Zero quickly stepped out of the trooper's way, caught his arm, wrenching it behind the trooper's back. Now with the upper hand, Zero quickly forced his weight down, bending the trooper over before taking out a Jakobs revolver and executing the trooper with a single, well placed round to the back of the head. Thankfully. because this is Pandora, nobody seemed to care about the quick fight. Finally able to focus on his goal, Zero effortlessly pried the exhaust pipe off of the car to his right.

"Yeah…Yeah, that's probably the thing that…does the other thing…and shit." Scooter said over the ECHO, clearly not knowing what he was talking about. About to say something back, Zero stopped right as he heard what sounded like either an explosion or something very big smashing into the ground. Storing the exhaust pipe in his inventory, Zero quickly picked his sword out of the dead Lanceman and ran to the source of the explosion.

"Hey! Stop right there. You are under arrest. If you do not comply I do have right to open fi-" A Lance trooper ordered, attempting to stop Zero in his sprint to the nearby parking lot. This order was cut short as Zero seamlessly snapped the trooper's neck and kept running in one fluid movement. After a few seconds Zero reached the parking lot, noticing a large pod sticking out of the ground. Jumping onto the crashed pod, Zero quickly climbed up and surveyed the area, spotting Axton and Maya at the other end of the lot. What really caught his eye, were the five armored women closing in with what seemed to be plasma swords similar in design to his. There were five of them, four identical and one who was taller with black armor, probably the leader. Three of the lesser assassins were running towards the other two hunters, while one assassin and the presumed leader stayed back. Seeing an opportunity, Zero activated his sword and jumped off the pod. Aiming for the lesser assassin, Zero landed feet first on her back while simultaneously severing her spinal cord with his sword. Surprised by the sudden arrival, the presumed leader stepped back and looked at him.

"Who the hell? Great, now with you here we can take out _three_ targets." The assassin leader growled out, pulling out two plasma swords. Seeing a possible challenge, Zero pulled his sword out of the dead assassin's back and displayed a :D emote. Thinking Zero was all show, the assassin charged, getting a bit disoriented as her swords simply passed through Zero. Realizing it was a trap, the assassin turned around quickly in an attempt to behead Zero, being stopped mid-swing by Zero's much larger sword. The two assassins stood there, locked for a few seconds before Zero made a move. Pushing forward, Zero managed to get the other assassin off-balance and shove, twisting her left wrist just right, making her lose one sword. Now on even ground, the two assassins ran at each other, swords locking repeatedly. Noticing an opportunity, Zero forced the other assassin's sword off to the side before flicking his wrist upwards, slashing the Lance assassin's hand off at the wrist. Now disarmed, the assassin stood there, clutching her stub of a right hand in defeat. Deciding to end it, Zero quickly slashed upwards at a diagonal angle, slashing the Lance Assassin's stomach open. Before the wounded assassin could say anything Zero swung again horizontally, cutting the wounded assassin's head off in one clean swing.

"That was far too quick/I expected more from you/You are a disgrace." Zero stated, turning his attention to the other three assassins. One was dead with Axton's hatchet buried in its skull, one was disarmed of its blades and wrestling with Maya, and the third was pinned down by Axton, who was keeping it in cover with a Vladof assault rifle. Thinking that Axton had it under control, Zero moved to go help Maya. Little did Zero know that he was wrong.

"Yeah, not so tough now that you can't do your acrobatics!" Axton cheered, seeing the assassin peek up every now and then to try and look for a way over. All was going well, a few more seconds of this and he would be able to throw his turret behind the car, catching the assassin in total crossfire. There was however one very massive complication: Axton just ran out of ammo.

"Wait, what? Crap." Axton yelled frantically, thinking of some way to kill the assassin. Thinking quickly, Axton reached for the nitro tank and threw it just as the assassin stood up from behind the car. The nitro tank flew decently far and collided with the assassin's head, knocking her out on impact. "Huh, I didn't think that would work. Maya, you ok?"

"Yeah, no thanks to you." Maya answered, picking up the nitro tank while Zero dumped the assassin bodies in a nearby dumpster.

"Hey, I was helping! I kept the other assassin from attacking you." Axton responded in his defense.

"You were shooting at the freakin' car until you ran out of ammo! And missing mostly too!" Maya yelled back.

"True, but still. Gaige and Salvador should have that supercharger. Zero, you got the exhaust pipe?" Axton asked, changing the subject. Zero simply nodded, throwing the last Lance corpse in the dumpster, closing the lid afterwards.

"Either way the lance seems to know we're Vault Hunters, so lets get back to Scooter's and get that car built." Maya answered, starting to walk back to Scooter's.

Back at Scooter's garage.

The three Vault Hunters entered to see Scooter with his legs propped up on his desk. Off to the right Gaige and Salvador were sitting down side by side, Salvador was looking away from Gaige, arms crossed with a bag of ice on his foot.

"The hell's wrong with him?" Maya asked, gesturing to Salvador.

"He's pissed at me because he thinks it's my fault that he dropped the supercharger on his foot when Scooter phoned in." Gaige explained.

"Ah, you already get it installed?" Maya asked, looking over at the car shell.

"Yeah, the supercharger's already in. Just get the other two parts installed and we can get going to Moxxi's place." Gaige responded. After about a half-hour of trying to understand Scooter's instructions, the Vault Hunters finally got the other two parts installed. After getting it in the Catch-a-ride system, everything seemed to be going good…until Scooter spoke up.

"Alright now there's one hitch. The catch-a-rides have been acting screwier than a hooker on happy hour, so you'll only be able to spawn one of these things for now. How you Vault Hunters manage to all fit in is beyond me though." Scooter announced, clearly having no ideas for an alternative.

"Alright well, I guess we'll have to settle who sits where. Any ideas?" Axton asked, looking at his whole five-member group.

"I've got an idea." Maya stated, smiling in an evil way while looking at Salvador.

"Mierda." Salvador grumbled, knowing that when Maya smiled at somebody, it usually wasn't going to end well for them.

Author's note

Alright, finally got to this. I'm going to be going back and forth between this and my halo fic with each chapter upload, so be sure to keep an eye on both. I've also got a poll on my profile so regardless of if you review (please do by the way) as long as you like my writing feel free to go on my profile and vote on it.

Also as a note to some reviews: I'm going to be upping my writing quality, like how the Halo one is in chapter's 2 and 3. That means more action skill use (especially from Axton.) less skips, more descriptive detail, more spanish swearing (it's technically mexican spanish for any wondering.) more haikus and emotes, and just overall more to it.

Also happy pre-end of the world everyone! If it for some reason does happen then I'll look like a total ass and the story will officially end here, but if it does happen then non of us would be around to read it anymore anyway. And if nothing happens (the likely scenario) I'll work on another chapter immediately after finishing another Noble Idiocy chapter. So yeah, laughing in the faces of Mayans and doomsday prophets everywhere by playing minecraft with my friends while listening to End of the World by REM. So with that said I'll either see all of you in Heaven/Hell (probably hell for me.) or with the next chapter update.


	9. Chapter 9 : Stunted Angry Ornaments

"This is a r_eally_ bad idea." Salvador warned, mostly for his own safety.

"Oh come on, it's not that bad. You'll be fine." Gaige teased, a very obvious tone of playful sarcasm in her voice.

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one having to stand with your back pressed against the grill of the car!" Salvador yelled back. True to his statement, the five hunters, particularly Maya, had come up with a unique way to all fit in one Monster. Maya was driving, Axton was in the turret, Gaige was sitting on top of the nitro tank in the used-to-be passenger seat, Zero was sitting on the large spare tire hanging on the back, and Salvador was clinging on for dear life on the front like a short, angry, spanish hood ornament.

"Yeah well it was either that or I tie a sheet of metal to your back and let Gaige use you as a ski-board, so be thankful." Maya warned, not helping Salvador's morale in the slightest. Driving out of Scooter's garage, the hunters turned the corner and started to drive off towards Moxxi's place. There was one big issue though.

"Crap, they have tollbooths and barricades up that fast?" Gaige asked, looking ahead at the Crimson Lance guarding the road they needed to take.

"Looks like it. Just drive up, act normal and see if we can get by." Axton said lowly, making sure the Lance couldn't hear him as they got closer to the barricade.

"Act calm? We have an angry stunted spanish dude clinging onto the grill. You don't think they'll notice?" Gaige asked. Before she could get an answer, they had made it up to the barricade. Signaling for Maya to stop, a Lance trooper walked over to the driver side of the Monster.

"Excuse me ma'am, but I need to ask, have you seen this fugitive?" The Lance trooper asked, pulling out a poster of Maya. Not knowing what to say, Maya could only spit out the first thing that came to mind.

"Uh, no." Maya meekly responded, slouching in the seat in an attempt to nonchalantly hide her siren marks, expecting the Lance trooper to put two and two together. The Lance trooper carefully looked at Maya, then back at the poster. He continued to do this about 5 times, muttering in a confused manner as if he were a toddler trying to understand rocket science.

"Oh, ok. Well then I guess just get moving. Nice hood ornament by the way." The Lance trooper eventually complimented, signaling for another trooper to lower the barricade to the Crimson Tollway. Not wanting to test her luck, Maya hit the gas and immediately sped off.

"¿Qué? Oh eso es todo ... Cuando le ponga las manos sobre uno de vosotros me va a estrangular a la mierda de ti! Maldito oírme! Hey! Hijos de puta! Estoy hablando con ousted!" Salvador yelled as they sped off, obviously very angry that the trooper thought he was an animated ornament.

"Did that really just happen?" Axton asked in disbelief, peeking out of the Monster to see if the Lance had a delayed reaction.

"Yeah. If all Lance are dumb enough to not recognize a target right in front of them maybe this'll be easier than I expected." Maya answered, trying to put as much distance between them and the barricade as possible.

"So what's the plan again?" Gaige asked, looking out at the barren wasteland around them in an attempt to spot anything indicative of non-Lance activity.

"You guys get me the hell off of this grill!" Salvador cut in, still spurred from the Lance Trooper's comment.

"Simple. We find wherever this "Moxxi" person is holed up at, and see what she knows about Athena." Maya answered, watching as a Lancer APC drove by in the opposite lane.

"And, if the Lance grow enough brain cells to read their own wanted posters, kill a bunch of Lance along the way?" Gaige asked, checking her Vladof Rifle she found on a long-dead Bandit when she arrived on Pandora. Gaige had never technically "killed" anyone before, Deathtrap splattering Marcy like rich, haughty red paint at the Science Fair notwithstanding, so she was admittedly a tad bit nervous.

"Pretty much." Axton replied, looking ahead to see something come up out of a platform on their right. It looked like some sort of floating tube, which then popped open to show a red optic. "The hell is that?"

"Who knows. Maybe Pandora has some sort of local news we don't know about ye-Jesus!" Maya yelled, jerking the car to the left as the drone fired a rocket ahead of their car in an attempt at leading its target. Almost as if on cue, three more drones showed up, one of which also fired rockets while the other two used what seemed to be internally-mounted MG's.

"Oh, sure…First I'm a hood ornament and now I'm a Bullseye target?! ¿Qué coño está con ustedes?!" Salvador ranted, oblivious to the fact that the drones most likely both couldn't hear him AND didn't care. Almost as if in response, one of the rocket drones fired a rocket dangerously close to the Monster, directly in front of Salvador. "Ey! My balls are small enough from the drugs, I don't need you tin can perras searing them off too!"

"What?" Maya and Gaige both asked in disbelief, seeming more interested in the size of Salvador's balls than the drones shooting rockets at them.

"Long story, don't want to talk about it." Salvador stated, swearing internally that he could hear both of them laughing at him. Forgetting about his undersized pride, Salvador looked back up to see a drone floating directly in front of him, flying backwards so as to not be run over. Literally seeing a rocket slide into view in the firing tube of the gun hanging from the drone, Salvador expected the worst when suddenly the drone's optic shattered, shutting it down and sending it cascading past the vehicle. Looking back at the other hunters, Salvador saw Zero, still sitting on the large back tire, had sniped the drone's optic out.

"You should look out more/I can't always help you out/watch your own ass now." Zero said in haiku, throwing a pistol down to Salvador before raising his rifle again, shooting another drone out. Ignoring the insult, Salvador caught the pistol and, using one hand to hold onto the Monster, turned the pistol on a passing drone with his other hand. Firing a few rounds, Salvador was surprised when both of the remaining drones seemingly broke off.

"That's it? They're just quitting? Works for me, I guess I was just too much for…wait what is that?" Axton started to brag, stopping when another drone flew in front of the vehicle, this one had a Torgue rocket launcher mounted to the bottom of it.

"Atlas regrets that you are on its 'must die' list and hopes that you will continue to use our products should you survive this encounter. Have a nice day!" The drone said in an artificial, extremely cheerful voice before firing its launcher. The rocket struck directly under the Monster, causing it to flip, crash and skid along the ground, coming to rest against a large, red holographic barricade, complete with a Lance symbol in the middle. Not seeing any signs of life from the burning vehicle, the drone turned around and flew back, filing a report through its internal computer that all five hunters were dead. Once the drone was well out of sight, a single pale arm stuck out of the wreckage, followed by another. Crawling out, Maya eventually managed to crawl out of the overturned Monster before rolling onto her back, not quite ready to get up just yet.

"Are…any of you…alright?" Maya asked in between heavy breaths, looking around. They were at some sort of highway outpost, strangely with no Lance in sight.

"Yeah…I'm good." Axton groaned, kicking a flimsy chunk of the Monster off so that he could get out of the wrecked gunner seat.

"Still here, surprisingly." Gaige called out, wrenching a bent bar off of the Monster that was keeping her in place like a glorified seatbelt.

"Si. Still here." Salvador answered, meekly walking in Maya's general direction before collapsing on her.

"Hey…Salvador? Can you please get off of me? I think I cracked a rib, and you're REALLY not helping." Maya weakly asked, not having enough physical strength to push the spanish midget off herself.

"Mutual ground, deal with it." Salvador mumbled, resting his head on her chest like a set of pillows.

"I'm pretty sure my tits aren't mutual ground, you small-balled, dickless midget!" Maya angrily responded, starting to get a bit more energy from a serious want to murder Salvador in every way physically, and maybe even un-physically, possible.

"Hey, that's just offensive." Salvador defended, still not moving.

"What just happened?/we seemed to be winning that/did I miss something?" Zero questioned in haiku, the last segment directed at the peculiar sight developing between Maya and Salvador. Now all out of the wrecked Monster, the five hunters continued to lay around in relative silence before hearing the sound of numerous sets of boots hitting the ground, slowly getting louder. Before they knew it they were surrounded by Lance Engineers, with two Lance Defenders slowly catching up.

"Ah crap." Maya said, looking around as roughly two dozen Engineers, all armed with SMGs, formed a tight firing circle around the Monster.

"All five of you are on the Atlas death-list. Per General Knoxx's orders, you will all be escorted back to T-Bone Junction for a public execution. The Lancer should be here in another few minutes." The Engineer announced, giving Salvador a hard kick to knock him off of Maya. Closing in, the Engineers proceeded to stand each hunter up before moving them into a single file line.

"Well, that was fun while it lasted." Axton said morbidly, looking around at the other hunters.

"Maybe not." Gaige spoke up, a small smile starting to form on her face.

"How? We try to move we're dead." Maya asked, not understanding Gaige's point.

"Just watch. Hey! Big dude with the shield and the dinky pea shooter, can you come over here?" Gaige called out, looking at one of the two Defenders. The Defender proceeded to look at his sidearm, almost seeming insecure about it, before straightening up and walking over to Gaige.

"What do you want, freak?" The Defender insulted, looking at Gaige's cybernetic arm.

"I was just wondering, do you get harassed for that little thing often? I mean, I've held scarier pistols, and I haven't even killed anyone yet!" Gaige taunted, seeming to know what she was doing.

"Well, I mean, yeah it's small, but. I mean, it IS kinda threatening, right? Right?" The Defender asked, now seeming extremely insecure about his weapon.

"Look, I don't want to have you doubting yourself, but if you came across a floating, one-eyed badass robot built by the smartest teenage girl to ever exist, that could cut through you with digi-struct claws like you were wet paper, do you think you would win with that thing?" Gaige elaborated, watching the Defender decide on a response.

"Uh, no, not really. I guess it isn't as strong as I thought when you put it that way." The Defender answered, unintentionally sealing his fate.

"Ok, just checking." Gaige said happily before clenching her robotic hand into a fist, a bright flash of light appearing behind the Defender.

"What the?" The Defender asked, being cut off as a set of three blue, glowing claws shot through his chest, sliding out of sight a few seconds later. As the Defender fell to the floor, Gaige could see Deathtrap, looking at Gaige to confirm she was alright before turning and backhanding an Engineer into the wrecked Monster, impaling him on a damaged exhaust pipe. Now with all hell breaking loose (and because the Lance were too stupid to actually restrain the hunters, instead having them simply stand in a single file line) Axton reached for his tomahawk, embedding it in the throat of the nearest Engineer. Stepping behind the dead Engineer, Axton wrapped one arm around the corpse's midsection before using the corpse as a meatshield to protect him from two other Engineers. Meanwhile, Maya went for the closest Engineer she could get to, grabbing a pistol off of his belt before raising it up to the man's chin, blowing his brains out. Zero, used to these kinds of situations, drew his sword, activating it mid-swing at an Engineer, splitting the Engineer's arm, lengthwise, in half before quickly swinging again, bisecting him. Hearing the telltale clanking of the Engineer's heavier armor, Zero quickly pivoted on his foot and swung, decapitating another Engineer before pushing the headless corpse into its ally, confusing that Engineer long enough for Zero to diagonally split him open. Salvador, feeling weird by being in a fight without a gun, instinctively ran up to the first Engineer he could find before punching the man's unarmored crotch, causing the Engineer to double over in pain.

"Thanks for the free gun, idiota!" Salvador laughed, grabbing the Engineer's SMG, executing him with it a second later. Turning around, Salvador was about to shoot another Engineer before a stray, sharp piece of metal flew over his head, colliding with the Engineer and passing right through the man's armor like it was nothing. Looking at where the shard came from, Salvador saw Deathtrap floating there, mangled and bloody Engineer corpses around it, with another Engineer struggling to free his head from Deathtrap's grip. Clenching its right hand, Deathtrap effortlessly crushed the Engineer's skull before being hit on the back by the other Defender, who had been strangely absent from the fight until now. Showing no mercy, Deathtrap immediately whipped around, slamming its left arm into the shield before closing the distance and slashing the Defender's shield carrying arm off at the elbow.

"Ah! Tin can piece of crap!" The Defender yelled, clutching his stumpy left arm. Almost seeming angry at the comment, Deathtrap reached for the Defender's shield, which was now on the floor, and picked it up. Holding it sideways, Deathtrap swung the shield at the Defender, knocking him to the ground. Not stopping there, Deathtrap proceeded to repeatedly smash the shield into the downed Defender, ending by holding the shield correctly, then slamming it into the ground on the Defender's neck, decapitating him.

"Damn. That was brutal." Maya pointed out, ironically as she drove a large combat knife from one of the dead Engineers, much like Roland's, straight through the last Engineer's skull, ending his life quickly and painfully. With the last Engineer dead, Deathtrap and all five hunters regrouped in front of the wrecked Monster.

"Well that was fun. What now?" Axton asked, kicking the head of one of the Engineers.

"Well we need to get past this barricade…" Maya said, before looking at the wrecked Monster "…and a new car."

"Didn't one of those Engineers say there was a Lancer coming by in a few minutes?" Gaige asked, looking at Axton and Maya. Before either of them could respond a Lancer pulled up and a Lance Trooper stepped out. It seemed like he was the only one.

"Hey guys. Sorry it took me so long, some psycho was chucking buzz-axes at me on the way over." The Trooper apologized, stopping in place when he saw the five hunters and D-T, surrounded by the bloody and mutilated bodies of his allies. Zero turned his sword back on and began nonchalantly twirling it for added intimidation.

"You know what, I didn't really need this Lancer anyway…I'm just going to RUN!" The Trooper yelled, turning around and running for his life before being sniped in the back by Zero.

"I never let a potential kill get away, no matter how weak." Zero elaborated, putting away his rifle.

"Well then. Now that we have a car, does anyone know how to drive it?" Maya questioned, looking at Axton in particular.

"Can't be too hard. I'm sure I'll only crash a little." Axton joked, leaving the other hunters more scared than laughing. Walking over to the driver side, Axton, familiar with these kinds of vehicles, hit one of the only two buttons on the "door", being teleported into the driver seat. The other hunters did the same, thankful that this was a six-seater Lancer instead of the typical four.

"Wait, what about the barricade?" Maya reminded, wondering how they were going to get past it.

"D-T, you know what to do." Gaige ordered. Deathtrap, who was still outside the Lancer, floated out of sight to a bridge hanging over the road, connecting both sides of the outpost together. After a few seconds a loud, metallic ripping noise could be heard, followed by what looked to be a large power conduit that was violently ripped from its mount flying over the edge of the highway. After that, the barricade disappeared, followed by an alert letting Gaige know that Deathtrap was no longer physically on the field. What came after that was a message popping up on Gaige's optical HUD.

Sender: Deathtrap

Message contents: _Did it my way for once, fuck switches. From, Deathtrap._

Sorry it took so long, Latin and Algebra classes are total time-consuming pains in the ass. On another note, if any of you are wondering, yes, Deathtrap is going to be just that brutal in a fist fight from here on out. I figure, hey, it's a big floating robot. Why not have some fun with the possibilities? Expect more brutality and even some car-smashing down the road from him. Also I have a question for anybody who still reads this, which, given my previous author's notes have been my whining like a bitch I don't know how high that number will be, but here it is:

Krieg or no Krieg? If you don't know what I'm talking about, Krieg is the new playable character that was recently announced at PAX. I personally would like to use him, but I want to get input on a yes or no, and maybe even when from you guys. Maybe on a re-visit to Zombie Island after the Robolution to make up for how shitty that part of this fic was? Maybe after Hyperion takes over? I'll let you guys be the judge of that one.

Also, to fans from my other stories, I'm not giving up on any one of them, I just, as you can easily tell, take a longass time to write new chapters. I'll be writing new chapter for all three later today. Whether said new chapters come out this month or not depends on whether or not I can actually get on a schedule with writing.

Edit: forgot that the greater than and less than signs don't show up, so my attempted heart emote after Deathrap's name at the end showed up as just a 3. Also corrected the auto-correct in TextEdit, which changed surprisingly to surpassingly for some reason.


	10. Chapter10: You always remember the first

After a few minor crashes and a near-death experience of almost veering completely off the highway, Axton eventually got the hang of driving a Lancer. Unlike the typical Crimson Lancers seen in the area, this one was a Transport Lancer.

The distinction was that the Transport Lancer was about 6 feet longer, with an added mid-section for two extra machine guns, one one each side. Another modification is a less compartmentalized, more hollow back area in order to carry additional troops, bringing the highest possible passenger capacity to 10 people.

Axton was driving, Zero was in the turret, Salvador got the mine layer seat, Maya was in one of the two side-turret seats, and Gaige got a seat which had the label "Blast Pulse. Use with caution." attached to the panel in front of her. Not wanting to risk losing another ride that fast, they all agreed to leave that particular function alone for now.

"Ok, next stop: Moxxi's Red Light. Note that the driver of this vehicle is not responsible for loss of life, valuables, virginity, or any combination of the three." Axton announced in a mock-serious voice, trying to inject some humor into the situation. Hitting the gas, the Transport Lancer drove off, going credibly fast for an APC.

"God, they really are preparing a military occupation." Maya pointed out, looking at the unusually high amount of roadblocks they were passing. Thankfully they were only covering half of the road, and were placed individually in specific areas, making the worst thing Axton had to do be weaving left and right down the road.

"Yeah, occupation by roadblock. Were these damn things on sale or something?" Axton asked, veering to avoid another roadblock.

"That might be the case. Maybe we should get Gaige's bot to go burn down the resident Barricades-R-Us." Maya joked, not quite knowing the full name yet.

"Oh, that reminds me. Gaige, you called your giant murder-bot D-T earlier, right?" Axton asked, remembering the bet between him and Maya.

"Yeah, why? It's an abbreviation for DeathTrap if you're wondering." Gaige answered, wondering what made Axton ask.

"Son of a!" Axton yelled, not even noticing as he ran down a stray midget Pyscho.

"Knew it!" Maya cheered, remembering the win/loss terms she and Axton had discussed on their way back to Scooter's garage with the nitro-tank.

"Uh, did I miss something?" Gaige asked, confused.

"Axton thought D-T stood for Digi-Trap, and I said it stood for Death-Trap because of your whole skull-motif. So we made a bet, and he lost." Maya answered, smiling at the thought of what was coming.

"Looks like someone has no creativity…" Gaige trailed off sarcastically, unintentionally repeating what Maya said last time. A second later another message from D-T popped up.

Sender: Deathtrap

Message Contents: _Remind me to punch Axton through a wall or two later…_

Deciding to ignore Axton and Maya arguing on why Digi-Trap is a terrible name, Gaige pulled up her menu interface and flicked to the messages tab.

Compose Message

Send to: Deathtrap

Message Contents: _Eh, don't pick on him too much. He may be a bit…unique, but it could be worse. Although, now that you mention hitting people, you and another D-T model playing something like volleyball with Salvador as the ball would be pretty entertaining…_

Send

Sending the message, Gaige looked back up just in time to see them pass a sign that read _Now Entering: Deep Fathoms_. A few seconds later another sign could be seen that read _Moxxi's Red Light: 2 KM_

"Well at least she makes it easy." Maya pointed out, looking at the sign.

"Huh, what happened over there?" Axton asked, looking ahead at a pile of smoking, wrecked car shells. Before he could get an answer Scooter unexpectedly called.

"Hey just a quick note about Moxxi since you ain't met her. She's got a peculiar streak in her, loves the limelight but she ain't as sketchy as she appears to be on stage. Oh I almost forgot: She's my mom, so you treat her right or I'll tie you guys to a vending machine and light you sum'bitches on fire." Scooter threatened before hanging up.

"Well that was…pleasant." Maya said hesitantly, trying to process exactly what just came out of their ECHOs.

"Great. I've heard of Moxxi before, but I thought she was supposed to be beautiful. If she's Scooter's mom she probably looks uglier than Maya does after rolling out of bed." Axton groaned, not realizing exactly what he just said.

"Hey! I don't look that bad." Maya defended, wishing the turret she was manning could be turned inside the vehicle to face the back of Axton's seat.

"Oh, um, is that what I said? I meant to say she's prettier than you in the mornings." Axton said, trying to remedy the situation, not realizing he was only making it worse.

"You're still calling my ugly, dumbass." Maya pointed out.

"Uh, right. I'll shut up now." Axton meekly answered, expecting to get his ass kicked for this one. Focusing on the road again, Axton looked ahead just in time to see the road end, sadly not quick enough to prevent them from going over the edge. On the way down everyone was screaming for their life. What stuck out to Axton after they had hit the ground was that one scream sounded exceptionally feminine.

"I didn't know you could scream so loud Maya." Axton joked, assuming it was her.

"Uh, that loud one wasn't me…" Maya trailed off, wondering who it was.

"Gaige?" Axton asked, now starting to wonder.

"Actually I thought it was Maya too." Gaige answered, causing even more confusion.

"Zero?" Axton asked, now just getting desperate.

"I don't scream." Zero responded in a calm, almost slightly annoyed manner.

"Salvador?" Axton asked, running out of options. Salvador didn't respond for a while until the other hunters turned to look at his seat.

"What? My voice gets pretty high when I get scared shitless…" Salvador defended, looking down in shame when the other hunters couldn't help but laugh. This outburst of humiliating laughter only lasted a few seconds before something slammed into the side of the Lancer.

"The fu-hey! Do you mind!" Axton yelled, seeing that a couple Bandits in what seemed to be a cheap knock-off of the Monster had slammed into the side of the Lancer. Hitting it on the gas, Axton got away from the Bandit vehicle just in time for Salvador to lay down a mine, blowing the Bandits to bits.

"Hey, I would suggest you don't stop. Like, at all." Gaige pointed out, sounding a bit nervous.

"Why?" Axton asked, getting the feeling it wasn't strictly a time concern.

"Oh no reason. There's only about a dozen of those Bandit Monsters behind us and closing." Gaige responded. Looking at a video-feed connected to a rear view camera, Axton saw that she wasn't joking.

"You know what, you're right. Fuck that." Axton responded, setting the Lancer on full throttle towards the waypoint. Unfortunately, this being an APC, it wasn't as fast as the Bandit Monsters chasing it. Most of them opted to tail the APC and fire, inaccurately at that, at the APC. Two of the Monsters sped up, pulling up on either side of the Lancer. Spotting the one to their right, Zero immediately spun the turret around and fired, landing a round directly in the drivers seat. The resulting impact caused the engine to explode, flipping the Monster over. Zero watched, satisfied as the wrecked Monster crashed into another Monster, causing that one to veer off directly into a large mine embedded in the ground. The other Monster on the other hand, had managed to pull up to the side of the Lancer unharmed.

"Do you mind?" Maya asked, watching as a Psycho from the Monster jumped at the Lancer, grabbing on to the frame around the turret she was using. Maya was about to fire when the Lancer passed something that looked akin to a pole, which smashed into the Psycho, taking him off the Lancer. Wanting to see why someone would leave a pole in the middle of a desert, Maya was surprised to find out that the pole in question was in fact the leg of a Drifter, with the Psycho passed out by one of its legs.

"Ok people looks like we're going through Bandit town, literally." Axton announced as they drove into what looked to be a small settlement. At first it seemed peaceful. That is, until a Bruiser stepped out into the middle of the road with a rocket launcher.

"Really? Again with the dramatic rocket launchers?" Gaige said angrily, starting to notice a pattern.

"Not this time." Axton responded, swerving to the left, dodging the rocket. However, APCs not being very graceful, this resulted in them literally driving through one of the buildings, coming out the other side with Psychos and cheap sheet metal stuck to the Lancer. Deciding to ignore it, the hunters got back on track and successfully got to the on-ramp. Once at the top the Lancer stopped in front of a set of small barricades, meaning they would have to walk from here.

"Ok, we finally made it." Axton sighed in relief, relaxing in his seat.

"So it's too late for me to ask if we're there yet?" Gaige asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Don't even think about that. Now, lets just get over there before more Bandits show up." Axton responded, getting out of the Lancer. Once everyone was out the group started to walk towards Moxxi's place.

"Huh, this place actually seems kinda peaceful. Weird considering the Bandit camp directly under the-" Maya started to explain, stopping when a round flew by her head, actually taking a few strands of hair with it.

"You had to say something?" Axton asked as the group ran to cover. As it turns out, the area in front of Moxxi's Red Light was actually infested with Bandits. Everyone pulled out their respective weapons, Axton with an assault rifle, Maya with an incendiary smg, Salvador with a Vladof rifle and a Jakobs shotgun, and Zero pulled out a Jakobs sniper. The four of them then stood up and advanced. Gaige meanwhile took a few moments longer, still sitting behind cover with her Vladof rifle in her hands.

"Ok Gaige, you can do this. It's only a bunch of psychotic rapists and murderers armed with guns and buzz-axes that would probably show no morals, respect or dignity. And that would probably tie me up before roasting me over an open fire at best…" Gaige said to herself in an attempt at reassurance, realizing afterwards that she was having the polar opposite effect. Trying to stay calm, Gaige took one, presumably last, good look at her Vladof rifle. It was grey, with the Vladof hammer and sickle logo painted on the magazine. Its overall frame looked similar to those ancient AK designs Vladof loved so much. It looked like it had a stock, which was improperly removed. Affixed to the front was a bayonet, with Gaige able to see her green eyes looking back at her in the reflection. Standing up, Gaige turned just in time to see a Psycho sprinting at her, buzz-axe raised.

"Crap!" Gaige yelled, feeling her brief second of confidence disintegrate. Closing her eyes instinctively, Gaige turned her head away and shoved her rifle forward, hoping that maybe she killed the Psycho. A few seconds went by, she was still breathing. Opening one eye slowly, Gaige was surprised to see she had actually killed a man. The Psycho was limp, the bayonet from Gaige's rifle solidly embedded in his throat, with a few trails of blood coming out of the wound. Recovering from the shock, Gaige pulled her rifle back, watching as the blood-covered blade slid out and the Psycho hit the ground, dead. Starting to wrap her head around the whole killing thing, Gaige took a deep breath before running to go catch up with the others. Now a bit more confident, Gaige raised her rifle, aiming down the sights, before firing at a Bandit. Catching him in the shoulder, Gaige took another deep breath before firing again, landing two rounds in the Bandit's chest. Now with two men dead because of her directly, killing was becoming much easier, slowly being able to watch as she cut down Psychos in a hail of gunfire.

_Is this what killing feels like?_ Gaige thought to herself, a small, very faint smile starting to form as she used her robotic arm's added strength to thrust the bayonet through a Bandit Raider's ribcage. If this is what killing felt like, she was starting to like it. Hearing a loud crash, Gaige came back to her senses to see a large pod had smashed into the ground. It was another Lance Assassin squad. The 6 woman squad seemed pretty evenly split up, one went for Maya, one went for Axton, one went for Salvador, and two went for Zero. That just left one assassin for her. The only problem with that was it just so happened to be the apparent leader of the unit, as her name popped up as "Hera" instead of "Lance Assassin".

"Get over here you little brat." Hera yelled, charging at Gaige.

_Oh hell no. Bring it on bitch. _Gaige thought, firing on Hera. Unexpectedly, Hera, doing a sideways flip, dodged the brief burst of gunfire before sprinting at Gaige again. Swinging with her dual swords, Hera just barely missed Gaige's nose. On instinct, Gaige raised her rifle up as a mock-shield to block Hera's second swing, which cut right through the barrel of her rifle.

"Hey, I actually like that gun you stupid bitch!" Gaige yelled, the adrenaline rush from almost having her nose split open making her more outwardly vulgar. Ducking under a third swing, Gaige ran past Hera and went for the severed barrel of her rifle. Detaching the bayonet, Gaige turned around and leapt at Hera, tackling the assassin to the ground. Seeing Hera get ready for a lethal swing, Gaige immediately pinned Hera's left arm to the ground before using her cybernetic arm to ram the knife through Hera's forearm.

"Alright, playtime's over!" Hera yelled in pain, swinging her leg up and hitting Gaige directly in the ass, knocking her off of the assassin. Pulling the knife out of her forearm, Hera looked around for her other sword before seeing Gaige again, who was standing there with Hera's other sword in hand.

"Looking for something?" Gaige asked sarcastically, wanting to twirl the sword but deciding against it because it would probably result in her lopping off a large chunk of her hair by mistake. Hera simply glared at her before sprinting, having to resort to a weak one handed swing with her right hand. Raising the blade up, Gaige actually blocked Hera's swing, being locked in place as Hera tried to force her back. "Wait, I actually blocked that? Huh, I guess I'm not as bad at this as I thought."

"You're really surprised at blocking a simple swing? Have you never trained with a sword before?" Hera asked, confused.

"Yeah pretty much." Gaige answered plainly.

"Well this is a bit underwhelming then." Hera stated, keeping their unexpected conversation at swordpoint going.

"Well it could be worse…" Gaige trailed off, trying to get Hera interested.

"How?" Hera asked, wondering how a trained assassin losing in a swordfight to an untrained 14 year old girl could possibly get any worse.

"This could happen." Gaige answered, uppercutting Hera unexpectedly with her right hand while her left held the sword. Stumbling back, Hera was caught off guard, coming back to her senses when Gaige ran at her. Swinging the sword diagonally (because it seemed that in a lot of sword-centric movies she's watched that move usually looked pretty badass.) upward, Gaige caught Hera's right arm at the elbow, cutting it clean off.

"Ah what the-" Hera said, cutting herself off from immense shock at losing a limb.

"Oh quit being such a big baby. I cut my own arm off on purpose." Gaige taunted, taking her "sheet metal" incident more as a bragging right than a traumatic incident. Swinging again, Gaige cut vertically, splitting Hera cleanly in half. Well, cleanly except for the overly-gratuitous blood and organs now spilling out, accompanied by probably the worst smell in Gaige's life.

"Ew, gross. That seemed like it would've been way cooler if these swords cauterized wounds." Gaige complained, covering her nose at the smell of seared intestines. Gaige had made it past the moral hurdle of killing a man pretty quickly, but the sight of someone's organs literally spilling out of their body like water out of a spilled glass would take much longer to get used to.

"Gaige! You alright? I completely forgot you were even -oh, what happened here?" Maya asked, running over before stopping at the sight of Gaige holding a deactivated plasma sword, as well as en excess amount of gore on the ground.

"Yeah, I'm alright. Got into a fight with the leader of that assassin squad and won, somehow." Gaige answered, feeling around to make sure she hadn't lost any limbs in the fight and just wasn't feeling it yet from the adrenaline rush.

"Oh, nice. I'll be sure to get you a drink next time we're in T-Bone." Maya complimented before fist-bumping with Gaige, displaying atrociously bad parenting skills at the same time.

"The others waiting for us?" Gaige asked, looking around for Axton and the others.

"Yeah, they're at the door. Come on." Maya answered before starting to walk towards Moxxi's Red Light. Once everyone was at the door, Axton hit the only button there. After a few seconds someone phoned in over the ECHO.

"Mr. Shank is that you? If it's you I already told you your money is no good-oh, it's you." The disembodied voice said, changing from anger to a tone that almost sounded like arousal. "You won't need your money here. Tiger growl."

"Tiger growl?" Maya asked, confused.

"Who knows. Lets just see what this ugly bitch knows about Athena." Axton answered, not knowing just how wrong he was about to be in regards to Moxxi's appearance. Swinging the door open, the five hunters stepped in to see that the place was a wreck. Overturned tables and bodies were everywhere.

"Sorry about the mess. A good kidnapping is never clean. Shank busted in and took Ms. Athena for a little ride. You should've seen the fight she put up-that kitty has claws!" Moxxi stated, stepping out into view.

"Oh, helllooo." Axton said, his eyes probably anywhere but head level.

"Si." Salvador agreed before whistling. Zero simply displayed a smily emote from his faceplate. All Gaige and Maya could do was facepalm at the men's actions.

Sorry that the fight scene near the end was pretty much all Gaige. I wanted to show her killing someone personally for the first time and felt that having the others more actively involved would've cut in a bit.

Also, after reading the, sadly minor, amount of reviews I got for the last chapter, and after putting up a poll on the gearbox forums, the votes for Krieg to join versus not joining are 9 to…

(drumroll please.)

0! So Krieg will be added as an additional protagonist in the next few chapters. It could be the next one, the one after that, not going to spoil. Also the more reviews the better. I'm a total fan-input whore ("input" sex joke not intended), so the more reviews the better. I practically crave hearing feedback from you guys, so please review your hearts out (not literally, then you wouldn't be alive to read the story anymore, kinda counter-productive)


	11. Chapter 11: Change of Pace

While most people, particularly people who weren't sadistic psychos at heart, would be worried and on edge about recent events, all Mad Moxxi could think of was potential. That Psycho, Krieg or something like that, had just shown up and has been attracting more paying customers than even Brick did.

_I guess everybody enjoys a good freakshow now and again…_ Moxxi thought, remembering some of the crazy things she's seen him do to the other competitors. It only got better that five more Vault Hunters just showed up at her door looking for Athena. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could convince them to try the arena too. The fact that one of them was a local legend, albeit a vertically challenged one, and another was a Siren, Moxxi's eyes might as well be turning into dollar signs.

Looking up from the bar she was leaning on, Moxxi looked around to see the five hunters, who decided to stay for a bit before going after Shank, entertaining themselves. Most of them were playing with the, miraculously functional, arcade machines on the edges of the room, except for Axton, who she almost forgot was sitting at the bar trying to hit on her.

"Huh, you're actually about to beat me." Salvador noticed, standing on a bar stool in order to be on level with the screen.

"Told you I would. Used to play this back on Eden-5 when my mom would lock me out of the shed. She always said some crap about working too much, and that I need to 'be more like the other girls' or some conformist bull like that." Gaige answered, not realizing her anarchist side starting to come out.

"Ah. Do you always get this low on health?" Salvador asked, noticing how close Gaige was to losing.

"No, it's just that stupid Baron caught me off guard. Between that and how jerky looking the Revenant's movements are, I've never liked this level." Gaige answered, focusing on not getting killed.

"Uh, you didn't notice that one to your right?" Salvador pointed out, wondering what Gaige was doing.

"Wait what? Oh what the! Grrr…..Friggin' Cacodemons…." Gaige grumbled angrily.

_Meanwhile with Maya and Zero_

"You could actually help you know." Maya pointed out, getting slightly annoyed with Zero.

"I am helping you/Do you not see me shooting?/Just try not to die." Zero defended.

"Last time I checked, 'helping' wasn't attempting to snipe with a DSR. That thing's aim is WAY too off-center in zombies." Maya responded, watching as another round flew by, missing a zombie's head by about a foot.

"Fine, I'll go to the box and hopefully get something better." Zero said, almost falling out of his chair as a large zombie with a lantern on his chest, covered in chains and razor wire spawned directly in from of him in a fiery explosion.

"Brutus?" Maya asked, tearing through a group of zombies with an AK.

"Yes. That fucker gets me every time." Zero answered, breaking from his haikus again.

"Yeah, the fact that he just kinda shows up where he pleases doesn't help. You _did_ kill him, right?" Maya asked, realizing that she didn't hear one of his death yells.

"No, he downed me and I shocked him in Afterlife, why?" Zero answered, wondering what Maya was worried about.

"Oh crap. Well when you do that it doesn't really kill him, he just teleports. Which means he could show up just about any-" Maya started to elaborate, actually falling out of her seat as Brutus popped up in front of her. Getting swarmed, both hunters quickly lost.

"That was bad timing/If it wasn't for Brutus/We would have made it." Zero said, helping Maya up.

"Yeah, lets see what the others are doing. Maybe we can watch a round of the Underdome before we leave for Lockdown Palace." Maya pointed out, walking over to the bar where Axton and Moxxi were, Gaige and Salvador heading there too.

"Well if there's anything I can get you, just holler." Moxxi said to Axton, evidently closing out a conversation.

"Hey Moxxi, when's the next Underdome event?" Maya asked, leaning on the bar.

"Wait, you want to compete? I can get you in one of the arenas in the next minute or two if you want." Moxxi answered, getting excited.

"Uh, no. I was thinking about spectating the next one." Maya corrected, watching as Moxxi stopped in disappointment.

"Oh, next one's in ten. If you hurry you might even run into the competitor on your way to the seating." Moxxi directed, pointing to an arrow that read "SEATING" on it, with the A missing and the NG covered in blood, probably from when Shank busted in.

"Alright well then anyone want to see the show before we leave?" Maya asked, turning around to look at the others.

"Sure. Then we'll get to watch someone else get shot at by Bandits for once." Axton agreed, standing up.

"You guys go find some seats. I'll catch up." Maya said, signaling to what seemed to be a very loosely put together concession stand. Walking off towards the stand, Maya saw that it was being attended by a Claptrap unit, with its frame painted to look like a tuxedo. Ordering what she wanted, Maya turned away from the stand just in time to come face to face with what looked to be a Bandit. He was fairly tall, wearing the same orange pants the Psychos used. The difference, however, lied in that he was more muscular, with a mask that looked more akin to a gas mask, as well as a small mohawk for hair. What was probably the scariest thing about him though, was the large buzz-axe hanging from his back. Shrinking back a bit, Maya was surprised as the Psycho simply walked past her calmly, proceeding further down the hall and out of sight. Not wanting to chance anything, Maya simply hurried to catch up with the other hunters.

"Hey, what took you so long?" Axton asked, looking as Maya sat down in between him and Gaige.

"Ran into a big Psycho on the way over, strangely enough he didn't do anything." Maya answered, passing a bag of popcorn to Axton.

"Oh, very funny…" Axton pointed out, opening the bag anyway.

"Well I figured at least maybe this time you'll get to finish it instead of losing it to a Tankenstein." Maya prodded.

"Hey, it's not my fault that fat fuck should've gone on a diet." Axton defended, hoping that the massive distance between here and Jakobs Cove would keep him safe.

"True enough. By the way, Gaige, I managed to steal this from the stand for you." Maya said, turning her attention to Gaige as she passed the Mechromancer what looked to be a dusty beer bottle with a thick, magma colored sludge inside, almost like some sort of red Rakk-Ale.

"Oh sweet. I would ask if this is legal, but I'm sure no one on a planet like this would care. What the hell does the label mean though?" Gaige asked, catching the bottle. Looking over at it, Maya read what it said and felt a massive sense of dread hit her. The label showed a bull skull with flaming eyes, with the label below that reading "Hell's Deepthroat" and subtext below that reading "Like getting throatfucked by Satan himself!".

"Uh, I'll tell you later." Maya answered, elbowing Axton in the ribs to keep him from laughing. Deciding to drink it anyway, Gaige popped the cap off with her cybernetic arm and took a sip. Feeling the results immediately, Gaige promptly put the bottle down quickly and vainly clutched her throat, thinking that it would stop the overwhelming burn.

_Jesus, that has to be THE dumbest thing I've ever done. _Gaige thought, eventually regaining her composure and picking the bottle back up.

"Uh, you want me to take that back and get you something else?" Maya asked, getting cautious.

"No, I'll be fine. The burn actually feels good the second time around." Gaige answered, taking another sip. That marked the second time Maya had to elbow Axton in the ribs for laughing at an innuendo since they sat down. Deciding to actually watch the show, Maya looked out as the competitor was teleported into the arena.

"That's right! Today's match will be in…Hell-Burbia!" Moxxi cheered, obviously having a lot of practice in the eccentric arena-host act. Getting a better view of the competitor, Maya noticed that it was the same Psycho she ran into in the hallway.

"Hey, that's the Psycho I met in the hallway." Maya pointed out, watching as the wave started, a few Skags and Bandits starting to spawn.

"Eh, he doesn't look so tough." Axton said, trying to make himself look confident. This confidence was immediately eliminated as he witnessed the competitor, which multiple signs hanging from the edges of the arena indicated he was named Krieg, pulled the massive Buzzaxe off of his back and swung it, lacerating a Bandit's ribcage in one swing. In a followup swing, Krieg managed to eliminate another Bandit, before using the back of his axe to bat a leaping Skag into a flaming pile of scrap metal.

"Huh, he seems pretty good. Think we should recruit him?" Gaige asked, seeming to have either gotten past the intense burn of her drink, or just having lost enough feeling in her mouth from the heat to where it didn't matter anymore.

"Uh, maybe." Axton meekly answered.

"Maybe? What, are you afraid of him or something?" Maya asked, seeing an opportunity to verbally torture Axton for a bit.

"Oh, sure. Of course _you_ would want him to join." Axton replied, trying to play the same game.

"What are you getting at?" Maya asked, wondering what Axton could possibly be thinking of.

"Well look at his muscles! I'm surprised you didn't try to jump on him in the hallway." Axton jabbed, pointing as Krieg backhanded a Bandit, breaking the man's neck. Turning around, Krieg immediately was hit in the head by a Bruiser holding a lead pipe. Recovering from the blow, Krieg caught the pipe the second time, wrenching it out of the Bruiser's hands before ramming through his abdomen. Catching a leaping Skag, Krieg pulled out a Jakobs Trick Shot Unforgiven revolver and jammed it in the Skag's mouth, firing a round clean through it.

"I'm fucking invincible!*" Krieg yelled, stepping on the neck of a downed Bandit, snapping the wounded man's neck without even trying. In response the crowd started cheering, only stopping once Moxxi spoke up again.

"You may think you're shit hot, but you haven't seen the Badass Wave yet!" Moxxi cheered, watching as two Badass Bruisers, a Badass Skag, three Elder Skags, and a Badass Bandit Raider poured into the arena.

"Start screaming!" Krieg yelled, pulling out his massive Buzzaxe once again. Charging at one of the two Badass Bruisers, Krieg quickly swung with his axe, knocking the Bruiser's combat rifle right out of his hands. Now disarmed, the Bruiser reached for Krieg's Buzzaxe, miraculously managing to get a hold of it before throwing it away.

"You call yourself a Bandit?" The Bruiser taunted, swinging a punch at the now disarmed Krieg. Catching the man's fist, Krieg was actually able to stop the Bruiser's swing in place before wrenching the Bruiser's arm downwards, letting go and backhanding the overgrown Bandit with his left arm, which was protected by a metal glove that covered his entire forearm. Stunned by the hit, the Bruiser aimlessly stumbled around, right as an Elder Skag snuck up.

Bolting past the Bruiser and towards the Elder Skag, Krieg forced his foot onto the Skag's head, pinning it to the ground. Having the upper hand, Krieg reached for one of the Elder Skag's back spikes, promptly ripping it off. Now with a weapon, Krieg turned back to the Bruiser, who now recovered. Kicking off of the Skag's head, Krieg leapt towards the Bruiser, using his momentum to skewer the Bruiser with the Elder Skag's severed spike. Now with two enemies down, Krieg looked around for the remaining enemies. Not seeing any, Krieg was promptly caught off guard when the Badass Skag unexpectedly leapt from the second floor of the center building, landing directly on Krieg. Not fazed at all, Krieg quickly put as much strength as he could into a left hook, hitting the Badass Skag in the side of the head, knocking it off of him. Getting back on his feet, Krieg looked around for a weapon. Spotting a metal bar sticking out of what looked to be a flaming pile of metal bits, Krieg grabbed it. Staring down the Badass Skag, Krieg was ready.

Back on its feet, the Badass Skag kicked up some dust with its back leg before charging headfirst at Krieg, who did the same. Sprinting headfirst at each other, the crowd watched intently as Krieg and the Skag collided, the Badass Skag leaping at the last second. Already reacting, Krieg thrusted upwards with the metal bar, impaling the Badass Skag mid-leap in the ribs. Using the momentum of the Skag's jump, Krieg quickly pivoted on his heel, turning 180 degrees and forcing the Skag downwards, which not only landed it on its back but also lodged the bar in the ground, effectively pinning the Skag's corpse in place. Now with the Badass Skag down, all that was left were the other two Elder Skags, the Badass Bandit Raider, and the last Badass Bruiser. The Skags, seemingly angry about the Badass Skag's death, charged at Krieg. Confident, Krieg simply held his ground, hands open in anticipation. When the two Skags got close, Krieg stepped forward and reached down and grabbed both Skags by their heads, pinning their mouths shut. Now at a distinct advantage, Krieg violently slammed the two Skags headfirst into each other, killing both of them. Turning his attention back to the two Bandits, Krieg grabbed his Buzzaxe off of the ground, getting a good look at what the Bandits were carrying. The Raider had what looked to be one of the new Maliwan Storming Gospel SMGs, while the Bruiser had a Vladof Ferocious Shredifier Assault Rifle.

"You'd better run! What are you? Scared….or something?!" The Raider yelled, already seeming intimidated by Krieg's Buzzaxe. Not hesitating, Krieg sprinted towards the two Bandits, who were standing side by side in the center of the arena. Shrugging off the bullets hitting him, Krieg raised his Buzzaxe, bringing it down on the Raider's exposed left shoulder. Solidly embedding the axe, Krieg let go of the axe, turning to the Bruiser. Grabbing the minigun-like barrel of the Bruiser's rifle, Krieg twisted his hand in the direction opposite of the barrels, essentially causing them to snap themselves off from firing. Readjusting his grip on the severed barrels, Krieg swung it like a bat, hitting the Bruiser in the side of the head. Taking his Buzzaxe out of the Raider's shoulder, Krieg swung upwards with his axe at the Bruiser, followed by a downward swing, lodging the axe in the Bruiser's skull. Without skipping a beat, Krieg quickly put his axe back on his back and pulled out a stick of dynamite, jamming it in the Raider's open shoulder wound before lighting it. Kicking the Raider away, Krieg watched as the Raider helplessly tried to remove the dynamite, being blown up a few seconds later.

"Wow…I like it….I like it….Keep it comin'. You're tougher than I thought." Mad Moxxi complimented over the loudspeaker, which was the only way you could hear her over the roaring applause Krieg was getting. Now down to the boss wave, it looked like Krieg could take anything.

"Ok, I will admit that was pretty good. Maybe when we get ready to steal the Lance's invasion stockpile he can come along." Axton admitted, almost feeling like he now had competition in a couple ways.

"What's that? You want a hammer fight? Dodge this hammer! The mighty Sledggggeee!" Moxxi announced, dragging out the word Sledge for added effect. Right on cue, the red curtains on a nearby stage slid back, revealing Sledge, who had two Badass Raiders with him.

"Stay back right now. He mine." Sledge ordered in his trademark broken english, signaling for the two Raiders to hang back. Pulling out his massive hammer, Sledge jumped off of the stage's top step, landing on the opposite side of the red carpet from Krieg with a loud thud. Pulling out his Buzzaxe, Krieg and Sledge stared each other down for a few seconds, slowly inching closer. Once both combatants were a third of the way towards the center of the carpet they broke into a full on sprint, weapons raised. Swinging, both Bandits locked weapons, neither one much stronger than the other. What Krieg didn't expect, which was weird since this is a Bandit leader he's fighting, was for Sledge to quickly throw an uppercut at Krieg with his left hand, hitting Krieg directly in the abdomen. Getting the wind taken out of him, Krieg actually fell backwards, stooping into a few second trance as Sledge and the two Raiders proceeded to beat and stomp the life out of him. They only stopped when Krieg started laughing, which began as a mild chuckle before developing into a full-on laughing fit.

"What so funny?" Sledge asked, not understanding the joke.

"What's so funny? The fact that I'll take you ALL with me!" Krieg laughed, lighting a large bundle of dynamite that he was holding. Unable to run away in time, the three Bandits and Krieg were enveloped in a massive explosion, the resulting dust cloud preventing anyone from seeing who survived. Eventually the dust cloud cleared, with none other than Krieg standing in the middle of the blast mark, totally unharmed and holding Sledge's helmet high in the air for the crowd to see.

"Tough son of a bitch…" Maya noticed, wondering how someone could survive a blast like that, let alone get up like nothing happened.

"Did I promise you a show or didn't I? Who loves you and who do you love?" Moxxi called out to the crowd, watching happily as the crowd roared back in agreement.

Author's Note

Well was that a nice change of pace? I remember someone on the bioware forums giving me the suggestion that I should always have down time to make characters more "3-D" instead of feeling like cardboard cutouts. So with that said I went with titans vs gods' suggestion and decided to feature Krieg in the Underdome. Following up on fan advice even more, Krieg won't be officially joining the group until close to the end of Secret Armory, which hopefully by the time we get there Krieg will be released so that I have a bit more of an idea as to what I'm working with than just a few quotes and a minor handful of skills pulled from a six minute gameplay vid…

On another topic there are a few things I forgot to mention last time. First, the bet between Maya and Axton that was hinted at in the last chapter. I was meaning to get you guys a bit more involved in the story, so to start that here's what I'm asking: PM me ideas of what YOU would like to see happen to Axton due to him losing the D-T naming bet. I'll take any ideas as long as it's nothing TOO obviously sexual, since this is still a T story. The featured idea will be picked at random, and the person who came up with the winning idea will be credited as such at the end of that chapter. Also two fics that are looking quite good so far, Borderlands-Saga of the Son, and Hyperion Strikes Back, that are definitely worth checking out. Note that Hyperion Strikes Back is M, so you'll need to change your search settings to include M fics if it's not already that way. Also as you can tell I'm doing a bit of experimenting, namely with weapons. Do you guys like it more when I just use simplistic naming like Jakobs revolver, or when I actually go look up variant charts of weapons and use things like Trick Shot Unforgiven and Storming Gospel?

Finally you should be able to spot a few references to other games throughout this chapter, the two arcade ones, especially the one with Gaige and Sal should be pretty obvious. Also Krieg's line with an asterisk at the end is a reference, but I'm cutting off my old habit of just telling you guys the references. I'll give you a hint: It comes from a game, more specifically a boss fight, that involves cyborgs and explosive armor. Let me know who you think it's a reference to in a review and I'll reveal it at the end of the next chapter.


	12. Chapter 12: Eff' Yo' Booth!

"So you're sure you don't want to compete?" Moxxi asked, sounding almost desperate as the five vault hunters started to walk out the door.

"Maybe some other time. For now we need to go get Athena before Shank sells her off to the Lance." Maya answered, pulling on Axton's arm so that he would actually leave with them.

"Fine…" Moxxi grumbled, crossing her arms. Stepping out of the building, the five hunters started to walk back to their Lancer when Scooter called in.

"Hey there, Momma said yo'gonna be needin' the Racer for one of your, uh, adventures. I've uploaded the Digistruct to the Catch-A-Ride system. You should be able to grab one whenever you want. Hey I'd be careful though. Compared to the Monster that thing might as well be a box of gravy with wheels. Oh an' also, fixed that whole glitch thing that made it so you could only spawn one. But since it's a two seater only, you'll probably have to figure out some mostly-likely-very-homo lap sittin' setup on account of there bein' five of ya." Scooter alerted.

"Well then I guess we have to make a decision. We'll have to decide on two drivers, two gunners, and whoever is left will have to probably hang from the car." Salvador announced, trying to be the decision maker for once. "So, first two people to say I get to drive."

"I" Maya and Axton called in sync, right before Salvador could say so.

"Ok…First two to say I get to be the gunne-" Salvador started to say, being beat to the punch again.

"I" Gaige and Zero both spoke up, leaving Salvador as the odd man out.

"_Coja mi vida_." Salvador grumbled, getting a feeling he was going to be hanging from the grill again.

"Well then with that decided lets get to a Catch-A-Ride station. I'm pretty sure we parked right next to one when we showed up." Axton said, turning around just in time to see a small horde of Bandits exiting the nearby buildings.

"Ok really? We were in there for a few hours and already you assholes are back? I mean, do you guys have a couple stolen New-U stations or something?" Maya ranted. Seemingly catching the Bandits' attention, the Bandits raised their weapons, only holding fire as what appeared to be a Badass Bruiser walked up to them.

"I'll handle this." Gaige said confidently, stepping in front and meeting the massive Bruiser halfway.

"Gaige are you nuts? You're practically half his size." Axton tried to warn, Gaige completely ignoring it. Gaige continued to walk forward, eventually locking eyes with the Bruiser while standing directly in front of him.

"Sup." Gaige said nonchalantly, actually having to look up at the Bandit.

"What the hell do you weaklings think you're doing in _my_ town." The Bruiser asserted.

"Oh nothing. Watching the Underdome competitors. Screwing with the Lance. Killing Bandits…" Gaige trailed off, a small smile creeping on her face.

"What, you think you're funny or something? Listen here little girl. You and your circus act friends better get the hell out of my town before I skin each and every one of you slowly and use your skin as rugs." The Bruiser threatened, pulling out a large combat knife.

"Dude, that's just gross…. Why don't you take it up with my bot instead?" Gaige asked, stepping back as Deathtrap appeared in front of her.

"Nice rustbucket. You build that thing yourself?" The Bruiser asked, a very obvious tone of mock-interest in his voice.

"Yep. Got third place in the Science Fair with him. Stupid rich bitch…." Gaige said, grumbling the last sentence more to herself than anyone. All the Bruiser could do in response is start laughing.

"You hear that guys? She got third place in a Science Fair with this thing! Oooh, I'm so scared! Next thing I know you're going to tell me some kid with a volcano experiment is going to melt my face off!" The Bruiser taunted, looking around at his fellow Bandits. Unfortunately for him, that ego caused him to not notice Deathtrap turn, almost winding up for a punch before thrusting forward with his right arm, hitting the Bruiser directly in the ribs. The resulting impact caused the Bruiser to sail backwards, going clean through a door opposite them and out the back, literally sailing _through_ the small, ramshackle building and off the highway. Everyone was frozen in shock before witnessing something so surreal it almost topped Jakobs Cove:

"It's good!" A Psycho yelled, running next to the door before holding his arms up like some sort of referee.

"That was beautiful DT." Gaige said in a proud tone, fistbumping with Deathtrap while still looking at the wasted door. A few more seconds passed before the remaining Bandits dispersed, peacefully going back inside while muttering things like _Screw that, I'm not getting killed_ and _I never liked that guy anyway_.

"Well that works…" Maya trailed off in disbelief.

"Yeah. Lets get out of here before more come out." Axton agreed, starting to head off towards the nearby Catch-A-Ride, the rest of the hunters behind him. Eventually reaching the Catch-A-Ride, Axton walked up to the machine, pulling up the car selection.

"So we're going to leave the Lancer here I guess?" Gaige asked, questioning whether or not leaving a heavily armed and armored APC right next to a Bandit town was a good idea.

"Pretty much. I doubt they would even know how to get in the thing anyway, let alone drive it." Axton answered, switching the selected vehicle before spawning one. A few seconds later a black vehicle that looked like a Runner with a spoiler and a large jet engine-like nozzle mounted on the back.

"Uh, where's the other one?" Maya asked, expecting there to be two of them.

"Oh, right, forgot." Axton said, getting an idea. A few seconds later another Racer appeared, this one in bright pink. Axton swapped it out quickly for another black one after a very angry Maya took a few steps toward him, looking like she wanted to try and fuse his face with the Catch-A-Ride console.

"That's better." Maya said with an evil smile, getting in the driver seat of her Racer, Axton getting in his.

"So where do I fit in?" Salvador asked, walking up to Axton and Zero's Racer.

"You could sit on the turbine on the back. Zero, help him out." Axton suggested. Zero proceeded to get out of the turret and help Salvador climb the Racer, eventually sitting down directly on top of the large turbine.

"Hey short dude. I'd suggest not sitting on top of the turbine 'less you want your balls singed off. Unless you're thinkin' of bangin' Moxxi, in which case feel free to stay where you are." Scooter phoned in, giving what sounded like half advice, half a threat.

"_Joder_. Think I should try sitting in front of the spoiler?" Salvador asked, wanting to keep what little pride his drug addiction left him.

"Try it. You'll either stay on or fly off when we hit the boost, so it's worth a shot." Axton answered, severely demoralizing Salvador. Doing it anyway, Salvador climbed over the spoiler, sitting down in the small gap between it and the rim of the turret. With Zero climbing back in the turret, both Racers made their way off of the highway, Moxxi calling as they went down.

"The Racer is a little somethin' I had my Scootiekins whip up for me. Got the extra junk in 'er trunk you'll need to storm the castle. Now let's get started." Moxxi said, the sound of her hanging up being accentuated by the lead Racer's tire crushing a Midget Psycho as they passed through the small Bandit camp below the highway.

"So where is Lockdown Palace again exactly?" Axton asked over the ECHO, following Maya's Racer.

"Other side of T-Bone Junction. We'll have to take down a couple of those fancier roadblocks on the way." Maya answered, maneuvering between the Bandit Monsters and Drifters roaming around the open desert, eventually coming to an on-ramp.

"Great. More roadblocks. Think the Lance will be much of a problem?" Axton wondered, figuring that if their last encounter was much indication, the Lance weren't as good as they seem.

"Unless they have something crazy like elemental troops, mechs, guys with jetpacks or troops who actually know how to fight I'd say no." Maya responded, seeing a sign indicating that T-Bone Junction was a relatively minor distance away.

_Meanwhile, at the Crimson Tollbooth just outside of T-Bone Junction._

Another boring day. That's what it was for this Crimson Lanceman.

_Too stupid to I.D. a target, they say. Total waste of space, they say. What do they know? _The Lanceman thought, messing around with the various functions on his Dahl Blitz Carbine like the mag-release as some form of minor entertainment. At least he had a good job. He got paid to just sit here, fumble around with his rifle and let anyone who had money and looked like a semi-decent person through the booth. Better than trying to go kill those Vault Hunters. Almost in a boredom-induced trance, the Lanceman came back to his senses when his radio turned on.

"Cpl. Leeroy, do you copy?" A man's voice sounded off over the radio, not sounding the least bit like a pleasant person to talk to.

"Yes sir." Leeroy answered, trying to use the fact that it was over a radio to hide just how much he loathed talking to this man.

"The drones spotted about five Bandits speeding down the highway, and it looks like they'll be coming right at you. Don't let them pass." The man ordered.

"Yes sir." Leeroy responded, hanging up. Almost on cue the faint sound of engines roaring could be heard, getting progressively louder by the second. Turning around and raising his rifle, Leeroy saw what looked like cut-down Runners speeding towards him. Getting a good view on the lead driver, who just so happened to be that woman he questioned before, Leeroy started to slowly squeeze the trigger. The only thing that stopped him was a small flash of light from behind the vehicle, followed by the cut-down Runner picking up a tremendous amount of speed. Stuck in place from shock, Leeroy came back to his senses when the Runner practically flew by, snapping the tollbooth's raisable bar like a twig. Now just pissed, Leeroy opened the booth and stepped out into the middle of the road, looking in the direction of the Runner that just passed.

"Hey! You're gonna pay for that one!" Leeroy futilely yelled, holding his rifle by his side with his right hand and shaking his left one angrily in the air. Suddenly a few Lance Probes flew by, one of them almost taking his head off. Starting to feel a bit of satisfaction at the thought of that Bandit being killed, that satisfaction was quickly taken away as a roaring sound that sounded like an engine could be heard, followed by a whole new world of pain plowing into Leeroy's back. Being kicked up in the air from the impact, Leeroy hit the ground hard and loud, his somewhat bulky Lance Trooper armor not helping one bit. Having enough strength to try and spot what hit him, Leeroy couldn't believe what he saw: another cut-down Runner, with a short, extremely muscular man that was hanging from the spoiler flipping him off.

"I think I'm just going to sleep here for the night." Leeroy groaned, still laying in the road and not caring that, in Pandoran time, it was technically 11:00 A.M. and he was still on shift.


	13. Chapter 13: Three-Way Angle

So, trying new shit again, now I'm testing to see if maybe sticking the Authors Note at the top helps it get noticed a bit more. Either way I decided to change the pace up a bit, so this chapter is mostly focusing on other angles in the story, we'll be getting back to the other 5 hunters next chapter.

Also, since nobody said anything about it when I initially asked, I'll ask again: I thought it would be fun to involve the readers a bit, so I asked you guys if anyone wanted to supply ideas for what will happen to Axton after he lost the DT name bet. The winning idea will be chosen at random, and the winner will be credited in the opening to the chapter it gets featured in. Just PM me your ideas, and I guarantee you, I will not pull bias, the winner will be chosen at 100% random (unless, like, only one person submits an idea for a month or two, in which case instant win for them.) So, if you guys actually hate this idea, just let me know in a review so that I know what to do and what not to do.

_Meanwhile, at the Underdome_

"I've been thinking about something." Krieg's inner voice spoke up, trying to spark a conversation with its dominant half.

"What?" Krieg asked out loud, sitting in a booth in the corner at Moxxi's Red Light, a bottle of Rakk Ale on the table.

"Remember that blue haired woman we met before the last event?" Krieg's inner voice asked, sounding like he was hinting at something.

"Yeah. She looked like she was afraid of me." Krieg stated, failing to see the point.

"Well, what if we looked for her?" Krieg's inner voice wondered.

"She had tattoos. The girl we vowed to protect didn't." Krieg said bluntly, thinking his inner voice was mixing appearances.

"Yes, I know they're completely different. But there's something special about her that I just can't shake. I feel like maybe the last one slipped us for a reason. Maybe this is the one we should be protecting." Krieg's inner voice reasoned, hoping to convince his brute half into agreeing.

"Hm. Now that you mention it, it would absolve some of the guilt." Krieg thought out loud, having another one of his short bursts of linguistic intelligence.

"So we'll go look for her? I'm pretty sure she's a Vault Hunter. Maybe we could join whatever group she's with?" Krieg's inner voice asked excitedly.

"Yes, later. For now, let me drink." Krieg answered, taking another sip of his Rakk Ale, which was being done through a straw pushed into a hole in his mask so that he could keep his face hidden. Ironically enough, this was the exact moment when Krieg's bottle ran dry.

"So we're going now I presume?" Krieg's inner voice asked in a very coy tone of voice. Krieg simply sighed, loudly, and got up. Walking over to the bar, Krieg stood and waited for a few seconds, speaking up when Moxxi looked up at him.

"You seen a woman? Blue hair, weird tattoos, yellow outfit?" Krieg asked bluntly, almost sounding like he was making a statement more than asking a question.

"Yeah, pretty sure her name was Maya. Left not too long ago with a couple other Vault Hunters. She seemed nice. Wish I could get her to compete already." Moxxi answered. "Why? Looking for her?"

"Did she say where she went?" Krieg questioned, wanting this to be over quickly so he could move on with the actual search.

"Yeah, I sent them to Lockdown Palace. The new management there, Mr. Shank, busted in and stole someone very valuable to both Atlas and the Vault Hunters." Moxxi informed, resting her elbows on the bar and holding her head up with her hands.

"How do I get there?" Krieg asked, still blunt as ever.

"Interested in helping them? I'll mark it on your ECHO." Moxxi responded, a marker and a list of objectives popping up on Krieg's HUD a few seconds later. Not caring about goodbyes or any of that formal garbage his inner voice made him do, Krieg turned around, his Jakobs Filled Bushwack shotgun in hand, and left the Red Light.

"Oh crap." Krieg's inner voice said in a dreading tone.

"What? Worried about Bandits?" Krieg asked, walking towards the small Bandit camp in front of the Red Light.

"No. Our ECHO device must've taken a bad hit during the last Underdome event. Look, the objective marker's all screwy. One second it's at Lockdown Palace, then it's at Fyrestone, then it jumps to Jakobs Cove, and keeps jumping to just about every named place on Pandora." Krieg's inner voice pointed out, both watching as the objective marker on their HUD wouldn't stop shifting.

"So what now?" Krieg wondered, walking through the Bandit town, listening as the Bandits around him were whispering to each other and pointing fingers at the Underdome champ.

"We head to T-Bone Junction. I'm sure someone at the Shotz Bar will be able to point us in the right direction." Krieg's inner voice answered, hoping that Krieg could be even remotely social. Making it through the Bandit camp, Krieg eventually came to a parked Transport Lancer. Without even saying anything, Krieg's inner voice watched as his dominant half walked up to the driver side, pushed a button on the "door", and they were teleported into the driver seat.

"You know how to drive this?" Krieg's inner voice asked, caught between curiosity and paranoia.

"Nope." Krieg answered plainly, backing up and turning to the left before slamming on the gas, speeding clean over the edge of the highway.

"Many more stunts like that and I won't have to commit suicide for us, you'll just do it yourself…" Krieg's inner voice mumbled, mostly to himself, as Krieg sped off towards T-Bone Junction.

_Meanwhile, at T-Bone Junction_

"Ow. Shit. Ow. Owshit. Maybe the pavement wasn't such a bad idea compared to this." Cpl. Leeroy grumbled, limping, painfully, down the sidewalk of T-Bone Junction. After about five minutes of painful, sluggish limping, the occasional bout of falling on his face for variety, Leeroy eventually made it to the Shotz bar.

"So, what can I get you?" The Shotz bartender asked, watching as Leeroy painfully sat down.

"Nothing at the moment. Unless you've got Rakk-Hive strength pain killers." Leeroy answered, trying very hard to not rest his head on the bar.

"Hey, aren't you the guy who runs the southern tollbooth?" The bartender, who a sign behind him informed was named Winger, asked, probably recognizing Leeroy's voice. After all, it's not like they had cheery introductory nametags on their armor.

"Yeah, why?" Leeroy groaned, wanting to avoid conversation, mostly for the integrity of his ribs.

"Because some of your Lance buddies that stop by here mention you a lot." Winger answered, pointing to some Lance Troopers standing guard on the sidewalk, both armed with Atlas HLK20 Rowdy Machine Guns.

"Oh really? And what do they usually say?" Leeroy questioned, interested to find out what's been said behind his back.

"Usually that you're a wimp, and that you couldn't tell your head from your ass if it had a sign on it. Oh and sometimes they like to joke that you wouldn't last five minutes as a Bandit without getting your head smashed on something." Winger informed, polishing a glass.

"Well screw them! I could be a Bandit! You know what, that's what I'll do. From this moment on, I'm a rogue Crimson Lance. Suck it Knoxx!" Leeroy yelled, middle finger to the sky, being interrupted as a large man in orange pants, who just so happened to be Krieg, walked up to the bar and slammed Leeroy's head into it. "Ow…I…guess I'll go to sleep again."

"Uh, why did you do that?" Winger asked, stepping a few inches back from his side of the bar.

"He talked too loud. I need directions to Lockdown Palace." Krieg answered, bluntly asking a question in the same tone a second later.

"Uh. Go North and follow the highway. You should start seeing signs that'll point you in the right direction. Good luck getting past the roadblocks though." Winger informed, easing up a bit.

"Thanks." Krieg choked out, sounding like he had to fight with himself to say that. Turning around, Krieg left the Shotz Bar, getting back in his Lancer and driving off, the sound of a tollbooth being smashed to bits and a man screaming heard shortly after he disappeared around the corner.

"Hey, on second thought, do you have a bag of ice and some _really_ strong Rakk-Ale?" Leeroy asked, still laying on the ground.

"Bag of ice and a bottle of Rakk-Ale strong enough to put a Rakk-Hive to sleep, coming right up." Winger answered, reaching for a blue bag and a bottle of Rakk-Ale.

_Meanwhile, at Dr. Ned's house, Jakobs Cove…_

"Ok…ECHO log for…uh….dammit. That serum's screwing with my memory. Can't remember what day it is, month either. Ok….either way, that crazy bitch caught up with me. Got me in the shoulder with an Insta-Health Vial, but I can feel it. This isn't Insta-Health, that serum had something else in it. I can't look at the moon without getting this insatiable hunger. And the Skags have stopped attacking me. What, is this where those Wereskags I've been seeing come from? Either way, I don't know if that psycho-whore is going to keep toying with me or if she'll just end it. But if anyone finds this, and I'm gone, just know this: if you see her, don't let your guard down. She's one of them. Creepy bitch is able to change on the spot too. One second a beautiful girl, next second….monster." A frantic man whispered into an ECHO recorder, eyes constantly darting around the dimly lit room. Ending the recording, the man started to calm down until the sound of a door slamming startled him. Paralyzed with fear, the man might as well have been dead when a female figure, which he quickly identified, stepped into the room and turned on an overhead light.

"There you are. Unless you want to be one of the mindless ones you'll need your second dose." The woman said, her black lips forming a sadistic smile as she pulled out an Insta-Health Vial.

"Get the hell away from me!" The man yelled, pulling out a rusty and beaten Jakobs Leather Revolver. Pulling the trigger, the round had no effect as the woman's form immediately shifted to a tall, midnight black colored Wereskag, the area where a nose would be on a human colored a dark, blood red. Shrugging off the round, the Wereskag lunged forward, slamming the vial into the man's shoulder. Letting go of the revolver, the man could only clutch the area where the vial hit in pain. Now writhing on the floor, the man looked up to see the woman shifting back to a human, her dark red eyes almost staring into his soul before turning around and leaving, shutting off the light on her way out.


	14. Chapter 14: Strippin' the Flesh

"So, what exactly was it that you said back on the highway?" Axton asked, taking cover behind one of the two parked Racers as he reloaded his Dahl Scout Defender assault rifle.

"That the Lance hopefully didn't know how to fight for shit, that they wouldn't have elemental troops, and that they wouldn't have jetpacks?" Maya asked back, trying to confirm if they were on the same page. Finally getting a slight break in the gunfire, Maya stood up slightly, eventually spotting a Lance Trooper on an overhead catwalk that seemed a little bit too confident. Raising the sights on her Maliwan Consummate Vexation SMG, Maya fired a few rounds, taking cover again when they hit their mark directly on the Lance Trooper's head. Dropping his gun, the Lance Trooper started to scream, only being silenced as his head abruptly exploded, probably from the electric element on Maya's gun, and his lifeless body tipped over the catwalk.

"Yeah, that. Never say anything like that again, you're starting to attract Salvador's luck." Axton pointed out, watching as his kill was stolen by Zero, who was using a Jakobs Hyiu Muckamuck sniper rifle.

"Hey, _one_ time I got us run out of a frontier town." Salvador defended, failing to find a target that his short stature would allow him to hit without completely exposing himself.

"Yeah, because the locals recognized you and started trying to kill us. The hell did you even do?" Maya asked, quickly ducking as a Lance Rocketeer armed with a Dahl Blitz Carbine quickly flew into view, being just as quickly taken out by Zero, a well-placed sniper round sending the poor man's jetpack into a fritz.

"Ok, I may have had a bit of fun with the local leader's daughter…then proceeded to shoot said leader on my way out." Salvador meekly answered, realizing just how weak his argument was.

"So you fucked the guy's daughter, then shot him?" Axton asked, trying to make sense of Salvador's stories for once.

"No, I also shot the sheriff. Missed the deputy though." Salvador answered, landing a round from his Jakobs Horse Scarab rifle in a Lance Trooper's shin.

"Is it always like this with him?" Gaige asked, injuring three grouped up Lance Troopers with a blaze from her Vladof Woeful Rifle, one of them actually falling face first into a followup bullet, dying instantly.

"Pretty much." Axton and Maya answered, strangely in sync.

"Hey, DT, care to help?" Gaige asked, summoning Deathtrap as a Badass Lance Infantry started to descend the stairs to their right, blazing a Torgue Slippery Spitter assault rifle. Shrugging off the occasional gyrojet that successfully hit him, DT bolted for the Badass, who was now standing on the road as well. Backhanding the Torgue rifle out of his hands, Deathtrap quickly flew behind the Badass Infantry, grabbing the man's head. Simultaneously pushing him to his knees and bending him backwards, DT eventually delivered a hard punch to the Badass's back, shattering his spinal cord. Still holding on to the deceased Infantryman's head, Deathtrap activated a grenade on the dead man's belt, flinging his corpse into the catwalk a second later. Evidently his grenades had an incendiary MIRV mod, as the corpse blew up in a fiery explosion on the catwalk, which was followed by four or five successive bursts of flame, incinerating anyone nearby.

"Well that's one way to do it. Everybody up those stairs." Axton ordered, getting up and running for the staircase. The other hunters followed, Zero switching to a Jakobs Dastardly Iron revolver as he got up. Ascending the staircase, the hunters looked around for a way to disable the roadblock, quickly coming under fire from more Lance. Not wasting time, the group turned their guns on the oncoming group of Lance Infantry, killing all but one of them in the hail of gunfire. About to execute the downed man, the group stopped when a Lanceman in white armor, which their HUDs indicated was designated a Lance Combat Medic, threw a modified Scorpio turret by the downed man. Crawling to the turret, the injured Lance Infantry got back up, looking just fine.

"Great, looks like these guys can un-cripple themselves. DT, put those guys high on your priority list." Gaige pointed out, watching as Zero put a round through the man's damaged helmet, ending his life.

"Understood." DT said in a deep, bass-heavy synthetic voice, which marked the first time he had actually spoken since arriving on Pandora. Activating his digistruct claws, DT let his arms hang as he passed over the Medic's turret, the claws splitting it into numerous pieces. Now with the turret down, DT rushed the Combat Medic, swinging upwards and lopping the man's right leg off as he tried to flee. Now with the upper hand, DT grabbed the crippled medic by the back of the neck. Holding him upside down, DT quickly flew downwards, pile-driving the medic's head into little bits.

"So, did you specifically program your bot to be _really_ messy with his kills, or is it just me?" Axton asked, finally starting to get unsettled by the massive robot's "messes".

"No, it's just that he packs enough punch to knock a train car off its rails, so I just encourage him to take advantage of it." Gaige informed, smiling as DT grabbed a Lance Pyro, flinging him over the railing and into the roadblock.

"Good to know. Wait, is that our old Transport Lancer down there?" Axton asked, looking over the edge of the railing to see a Transport Lancer drive up, flattening the Lance Pyro DT threw not long ago.

"Might be. Either way let's get rid of this roadblock. We can deal with whoever's driving that Lancer afterwards." Maya answered, phaselocking a Badass Pyro before flinging him into the guard railing behind him. Evidently forgetting just how much force she can put into flinging somebody like that, Maya was not expecting the Pyro to split in half at the hips upon hitting the railing, his upper half tumbling over the railing and off the highway.

"Uh…right. You lead the way." Axton said meekly, now knowing he's working with _two_ women that could kill him and leave no recognizable remains.

_Now from Krieg's point of view…_

"Alright, I saw her up on that catwalk. Just get up there and tell her you want to join her group. Also, those other people are her _friends_, they are _not_ holding her hostage. So by extension they're your friends, and they are _not_ deserving." Krieg's inner voice informed, wanting to make 110% sure Krieg didn't mess this up. Bolting up the staircase to his right, shotgun in hand, Krieg quickly tried to find a way over to the catwalk his target was on.

"Where she go?" Krieg asked his inner self, obviously tapping into the lower echelon of his capabilities for intellectual speech. Before he could get an answer, the sound of a man screaming, followed by a Lance Infantry soldier slamming into the wall next to him, had given a pretty good answer.

"I would assume that way…" Krieg's inner voice trailed off, giving a mental prod to his dominant half that he meant wherever the flying Lance came from. Moving again, Krieg eventually found a catwalk, probably the one he saw the girl on, and crossed it. Spotting what looked to be the red armored and bloody lower half of a Lance Pyro, Krieg knew he was on the right track. Spotting a staircase to his right, Krieg ran up the stairs to see a Lance Defender, walking away from him, no doubt looking for the same people. Thankfully this Defender was near the edge, and oblivious to Krieg's presence.

"Outta my way!" Krieg yelled, shoulder-bashing the Defender in the ribs, knocking him, shield and all, over the railing and off the highway. The resulting scream caught the attention of the five Vault Hunters at the bottom of the stairs in front of him. Quickly scanning the group, Krieg's eyes quickly locked on his target.

"Holy…wow. She's more beautiful than I thought. Alright, now tell her you want to join her group and kill some Lance!" Krieg's inner voice ordered, his hopes getting higher and higher by the second.

"Grrgh..nnn….aghhh…Strip the flesh!" Krieg yelled, groaning beforehand in what felt like his inner lobes pretzeling.

"What? No you idiot! _Tell her_ you want to help!" Krieg's inner voice demanded, hoping his brutish dominant side didn't royally screw this up.

"Gahh…Salt the wound!" Krieg yelled again, this time raising his gun straight up in the air with one hand. Before Krieg's inner voice could yell at him, Krieg spotted what looked to be five or six women in lithe metal armor wielding red swords sneaking up on the group in front him, the tallest one going straight for their target.

"Ok, yes yes, we'll salt wounds later, but right now you need to warn them, or they all die! And if they die, we die, is that understood?" Krieg's inner voice threatened.

"Grrrgh…Be…hind you pretty lady!" Krieg eventually yelled, pulling out his Buzzaxe and throwing it straight at the siren. Or, at least, that's what it looked like, as the axe really embedded itself in the skull of the tall assassin sneaking up on her. Sprinting down the stairs, Krieg bolted right for his axe, sidestepping the Siren and retrieving it. Shotgun in one hand and axe in the other, Krieg immediately attracted the attention of two assassins. Swinging with as much strength as he could spare, Krieg split one assassin in half before pivoting on his heel in a 180 spin, taking out the other one with a shotgun shell to the head. Now with three down, Krieg looked around for any other threats. The tall man in the suit was currently running his sword through an assassin's stomach, and a large black robot currently had another one pinned to the ground.

"Where's the last one?" Krieg's inner voice asked, being startled as a loud, unnatural noise occurred behind them. Turning around, Krieg saw the last assassin, arms outstretched and ready to kill, floating in a dark blue and purple ball. Turning around, Krieg saw that the Siren's arm was glowing, indicating that her unique capability must've been based around suspension and trapping things in the air. Looking at the siren as if he wanted a word of approval, the siren evidently caught on and nodded. Krieg proceeded to turn around and fire, killing the last assassin.

"Alright, well they don't seem to be attacking us right now. Try and do this calmly." Krieg's inner voice suggested, praying to whatever counted as a god on Pandora that his dominant half didn't screw this up. Not trusting his brute side entirely, Krieg's inner self tried something definitively crazy that was most likely not going to work.

_Now from the Maya's point of view…_

"Hey, isn't that the champion from Moxxi's arena?" Axton asked, whispering in Maya's ear as he pointed to the mini-Brick of a man in front of them.

"Yeah, pretty sure. He looks a lot like a Psycho, but he just saved our asses." Maya reasoned, whispering back.

"Wait, what are you thinking?" Axton questioned, starting to feel a bit edgy.

"Maybe we should let him join?" Maya suggested, looking back over at the man, who, if her memory was correct, was named Krieg.

"You're just saying that because he called you pretty." Axton prodded, feeling like he knew where this was going.

"Well he's probably a lot less disappointing than you. Besides, maybe you and Gaige can get together." Maya prodded back, putting a combination of insecure and confused thoughts in Axton's head.

"Wait, the hell does that mean?" Axton asked confusedly as Maya walked towards Krieg.

"So, are you friendly?" Maya asked cautiously, watching as Krieg twitched slightly, almost looking like he was thinking so hard that he was going to pop a blood vessel.

"Y-yes." Krieg eventually said, looking like he had a war going on in his head.

"Ok…do you want to join us? We could use another hunter, and I doubt you came out here by chance." Maya asked, feeling slightly more relaxed. Upon hearing this, Krieg's one visible eye opened wide, like he had just been told he was the winner of the meat bicycle lottery. What Maya didn't expect, was for Krieg to pull a Brick and run straight at her, dropping his gun and axe before locking Maya in a psychotic bear hug.

"I'm so happy, I could _kill_ you!" Krieg yelled, eventually, unlike Brick, putting Maya down.

"Uh…glad to have you too?" Maya said in a tone that sounded more like asking than a statement, watching as a sixth health and shield bar with the name "KRIEG!" and the icon of a bloody Buzzaxe popped up on her HUD.

"Alright well, now that we're done with the narrow strangulation, let's get moving." Axton ordered, almost sounding like he was threatened by Krieg's presence.

"Yeah. The controls for the roadblock should be up….there." Maya started to point out, pausing as Krieg immediately took off, Buzzaxe in hand, and rounded the corner. Judging by the progressive sound of machinery smashing, Krieg screaming like he had been electrocuted, the roadblock disappearing, and Krieg coming back around the corner with his arms coated in electrical burns, the picture was pretty clear.

"Ok…that's one way to do it. Everyone back to the Racers. Krieg, you take your Lancer and follow us." Axton ordered, stopping as what sounded like a shotgun pumping behind him. Turning around, Axton saw what a Crimson Infantry, with extremely banged up armor and an awkwardly placed nametag on his thigh that read "Hi! I'm Cpl. Leeroy K. J.!"

"Alright. Everyone put down your weapons or else you all die." The man, evidently named Leeroy, threatened. Looking very skittish, Krieg didn't feel threatened at all and approached Leeroy. Pulling the trigger, Leeroy came to the realization that his shotgun not only had a safety on it, but that said safety was still on. Now royally screwed, Leeroy was helpless as Krieg knocked the gun away before grabbing Leeroy's forearm, wrenching it painfully out of place.

"Ow! Owowowowowow, ok! I surrender!" Leeroy pleaded, begging for his life as Krieg let go.

"Dude, that's just weak." Gaige spoke up, watching the pitiful man clutch his injured forearm.

"Wait a second, getting a call from Roland." Axton interrupted, turning on his ECHO device.

"Hey, have you guys made it to Athena yet? Wait, is that Leeroy I hear in the background?" Roland asked, sounding quite confused.

"You know this guy?" Axton asked in bewilderment.

"Yeah, Leeroy and I served together in the Lance. Last I heard the poor bastard was stuck guarding tollbooths on Eden-5." Roland explained, sounding like he was recalling humorous memories.

"Well I doubt he would be of much use, but want us to bring him back to you? His forearm's looking pretty bad." Axton suggested, figuring that at the least Leeroy could make for good fodder if the Crimson Lance ever attacked Roland's apartment.

"Sure. I'm sure I could find something for him to do." Roland answered, hanging up.

"Hey, Leeroy, you done whining?" Axton asked, turning his attention back to Leeroy.

"No, why?" Leeroy asked, still clutching his forearm.

"Well your old pal Roland wanted us to bring you back to him. He figured you could be useful." Axton explained, helping Leeroy up.

"And what if I disagree with that?" Leeroy questioned, trying to sound tough again.

"Then I let meat-stick here kill you." Axton answered, pointing to Krieg.

"Lead the way." Leeroy said, now perfectly content with joining the Vault Hunters. Getting back in their Racers, and Krieg and Leeroy in the Lancer, the group quickly departed back to T-Bone Junction.

_A few minutes later, at T-Bone Junction_

"Good, you're here. Get inside." Roland greeted, signaling for the seven new arrivals to go into his apartment.

"Hey, where'd you find the new guy?" Brick asked, getting up from a tattered couch.

"His name's Leeroy. He tried to ambush us and our new friend over here stopped him." Gaige explained, deciding to lean on a wall over by a chair that Mordecai was in, Bloodwing perched on the back of it.

"No, the big guy." Brick elaborated, pointing to Krieg.

"I am death!" Krieg yelled, getting violently close to Brick. The two behemoths stared violently at each other before headbutting, both of them laughing maniacally afterwards.

"I like this guy!" Brick cheered, happy that he finally found a fellow CQC carnage lover.

"Alright, well now that we're past that we should head back out. We still have another roadblock to take out." Maya spoke up, about ready to get up and head for the door when a strange feeling hit her.

"Uh..hello? Can you hear me? Please tell me you can hear me." A disembodied male voice echoed, almost sounding like it was coming from inside her head.

"Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my thoughts?" Maya demanded, deciding to think back instead of vocally saying something, mostly to avoid looking just as crazy as Krieg is.

"Ok, good you can hear me. I'm the second voice in the head of that raging wall of meat Krieg over there. Long story, but he's not as bad as you think. Also sorry if this is invasive, but it's the only way I could get a proper message to you. On the bright side, I'm not technically in your head so much as I'm communicating straight to your thoughts, which means that you won't end up like Krieg." The voice, which evidently technically belonged to Krieg, elaborated.

"Crap…" Maya thought, dreading how this was going to end.


End file.
